The Blinking Eye Never Sleeps
by DCFanatic4life
Summary: AU. Stephanie McMahon is living two different lives with two different men, the only problem is she's living them at the same time...Chris/Stephanie & Stephanie/HHH
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the real people portrayed in this story. The characters are owned by the WWE and the people own themselves. There will probably only be swearing (and only mild at that) in this story, so really, anyone can read it so everyone hop in the pool!**

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><p>AN: So this idea kind of came from watching Raw and having some Twitter discussions about it and partly from a TV show preview I saw. I know I shouldn't start more stories, but hey, I wouldn't be me if I stopped. Anyways, so this story might be kind of confusing at first, I hope it's not, but it might be and if it is, feel free to PM me or e-mail me and ask for an explanation and I'll try my best to give one.

Anyways, so I'm delving into some VERY foreign waters here in that this isn't strictly a Smoochy story. You'll see what I mean, but yes, this is new territory that I didn't think I'd ever willing jump into so if you want to leave me a review and tell me how I did, I'd really appreciate it. Hell, if you just want to leave a review, I'd really appreciate that too. Be brutal if you want, I don't really care either way, I can handle it. I just hope you do enjoy and please let me know what you think, thanks! :)

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><p>It would've been so much easier if she could just say she was crazy.<p>

They could lock her up and then maybe she would get some help and this thing that happened wouldn't be real. They'd talk her out of it and she would just go on living her crazy life and everyday they would tell her that she was just crazy and she would believe them and that would be the end of it. Or she wished they were just dreams, something she could attribute to her sleeping, docile brain, but it wasn't, everything she could feel in the waking world (whichever that was) she could _feel_. She could feel touches, pain, hurt, anger, sadness, and it all felt too real. Everything was too real just to discount them, dismiss them.

Stephanie lived two different lives…in two different worlds.

It all came down to a choice. She'd figured out that it had come down to one choice and one world went with one decision and the other world went with the other. She wasn't sure why she was afforded a taste of both worlds, but never the full deal. What was so important about that one choice, what was the universe trying to tell her? Which one was the right one? Were they both right and so she was forced to live them both out? She had come to believe that finding out the answers to these questions, finding out which world was the right one was the key to finding the real conclusion her life was supposed to be.

Until then, she lived both lives and hated neither one. They both had their pros and cons and so she was torn between these two worlds, torn between two men whom had come to her on the same day and asked her out and that's where the decision lay. That's where it had all began. That's where her life changed.

_Paul was handsome in a rugged, tough way and when he walked into her locker room for the evening (she always got her own as the boss's daughter), he had a swagger about him that she found mesmerizing in a way. She didn't lack for confidence, but he seemed to have it in spades and it made her admire him in ways she was becoming more and more attracted to. She smiled lopsidedly at him and patted the seat next to him. He took it willingly, sitting down and grinning at her._

"_So we've been working pretty intensely lately," he observed casually and he was so cool that she had no clue he was trying to talk her up._

"_Yeah, we have," Stephanie nodded, "but I think it's good for both our characters, especially yours, you're getting some major heel heat right now, it's crazy how many people hate you."_

"_It means we're doing our jobs well," he said and then didn't want to cut anymore time from what he could be asking. "So, I've been thinking long and hard about this and I want to ask you out."_

"_On a date?" she asked, surprised. "I thought you were still with Joanie."_

"_We're done, have been for a while, just haven't announced it yet," he shrugged. "I found myself falling out of love with her and I've become more and more attracted to you and I wanted to ask you out, so what do you say, me, you, dinner? Sound good?"_

_It did, but she wanted to think about it and so she told him so. "I'll think about it and get back to you later tonight, is that okay?"_

"_That's fine, just let me know."_

Blink.

"Wake up, Steph!"

Stephanie opened her eyes and looked at the room. Paul's world. She was in Paul's world. She stretched her arms out and picked up her wedding ring on the nightstand. Her wedding rings helped her remember which world she was in. There was no rhyme or reason to each world. Sometimes she spent days in one world, sometimes weeks in the other. She always had to check every morning. The thing was, the thing she couldn't explain (there was a lot she couldn't explain, but a lot she just stopped trying to figure out) was what happened in the other world when she wasn't there. Did she have some sort of doppelganger who lived it out? When she got to the other world she had memories of things that she had not experienced so there must be someone living it out for her. So if there were two of her, why didn't she get to stick to one world?

She shook her thoughts out and slipped her wedding ring on. Paul was at the door again. "Oh good, you're up, we've got that meeting today at Titan and we can't be late."

"Yeah, I know," Stephanie said, puckering up her lips. Paul laughed and walked over, kissing her and she smiled against his lips. "It's good to see you." It was a little joke of hers to say that. She always said it when she switched worlds.

"Good morning to you too," he said, "I've already got the girls up and they're eating breakfast in the kitchen. I better get back down there and make sure that Nancy is feeding them." Nancy was their live-in nanny who took care of their three girls: Aurora, Murphy, and Vaughn.

"Okay," Stephanie nodded, "I'm just going to get dressed and I'll come down. What did Emily make?"

"Your favorite, blueberry pancakes," Paul told her, his eyes widening in mischief, "I may have told her to make them for you today because we've got that big meeting and I want you to be prepared."

"You're always thinking of me," she laughed. Not many people knew how attentive and kind Paul could be. She liked that she got to see this side of him. It was like something reserved just for her. "I love you."

"I have to keep you interested in me somehow, don't I? And I love you too," he said, then swatted her on the butt. "Now go get dressed."

"I'm going, I'm going," she told him, making a face before walking into her enormous walk-in closet. In this world, she liked decadent. Her home was massive, enough to house 50 people comfortably. She and Paul had a cook who came in on their days off, Nancy, their nanny traveled with them, and they had a housekeeper come in once a week. It was the lifestyle befitting of a princess and that's what her father still saw her as in this world, well, in both worlds, her father would probably see her as his princess in every world that could possibly exist.

She picked out her black pinstriped pantsuit, the likes of which she didn't have in the other world and had wanted to wear for days. She slipped it on, adjusting the shoulders of the form fitting blazer and then she went to the mirror to check on herself. She didn't feel different in each world, but she knew that somehow, she_ was_ different in each world and she had to act accordingly.

She went downstairs and saw everyone in the kitchen. She walked around the table and pressed kisses to each of her daughters' heads and then sat down as Emily placed the plate of pancakes in front of her, "Thank you, Emily."

"You're welcome," Emily said politely before she went to the kitchen to clean up after herself. Stephanie poured herself a cup of coffee before taking a life-altering sip.

"Hit the spot?" Paul asked.

"Yes, absolutely," she said, "just what I needed. Today is a big thing. I can't believe my dad is actually thinking about stepping down. I feel like I'm going to a wake or something."

"But this is what we've wanted for a while, what we've been planning," Paul said.

"Mommy, I don't wanna eat this!" Aurora said pushing the pancakes away.

"Rora, calm down," Stephanie told her daughter. "You eat what's on your plate or you don't eat, that's the rules and mind Nancy, okay, she's trying to be nice and help you cut your pancakes and you're not being very nice."

"They're yucky," Aurora pouted with a huff.

"Then don't eat them and wait until lunch," Stephanie said with a firm hand. Aurora, being her eldest, liked to get attention. Murphy and Vaughn were smaller and needed more help with things and Aurora got jealous of the attention paid to them.

"Oh," Aurora said, realizing she'd have to wait until lunch to eat and so she voraciously attacked her pancakes.

"That's what I thought," Stephanie said, then turned back to her husband. "I know that this is what we've been planning, what with you taking the desk job, but I don't know, end of an era maybe. I just never saw my father stepping down, you know what I mean. I guess I just never thought I'd see the day. Not that I didn't know it was coming, just, you never expect it so soon…"

"_Stephanie?"_

"_Hey, Chris, what's going on? Is everything going okay for you here? Are you not fitting in?"_

"_It's nothing like that," he ducked his head. "I'm fitting in, I guess, I mean, it's hard, but I think I'm finally finding my place here and a lot of that has to do with you actually."_

"_Me?" She was a little puzzled by this assertion. "What did I do?"_

"_The Chyna/Jericho storyline sucked," he chuckled to himself, "I did it because I wasn't doing anything and at the very least with that storyline I was doing _something_, you know, but then you came along and for the first time since…God, maybe ever, I don't know, but for the first time in a really long time, I feel like I'm Chris Jericho."_

"_And that's because of me?"_

"_I have this character and I don't think I've really gotten to _be_ him until now and you're a huge part of that, you've…you've kind of saved me," he laughed to cover up the awkwardness of his confession, she could tell and she found that endearing. If she were honest, Chris was one of the most handsome men she'd ever met in her life. He had this ease and charm about him that was magnetic. _

_"I'm glad I could help."_

"_And that brings me to why I really came, I really…man, I'm so bad at this. I've never had a serious girlfriend before so you'll have to excuse the awkwardness, I'm not used to doing this, but would you like to go out to dinner sometime, with me, on a date sometime?"_

_She blushed and looked up at him. She'd been asked earlier this evening to go out with Paul and she didn't want to commit to anything just yet with Chris so she answered, "Do you think that I can get back to you? It's not a no, just want to make sure that I make the right choice…"_

"_Okay, I can live with a maybe."_

Blink.

The alarm sounded and she felt an arm then a body hovering over her and hit the damn thing so it shut off. "More sleep," the voice mumbled and she recognized it and the world she was in.

"We have to get up," she told him, "we have to drive to Green Bay."

"No," he whined, "I don't want to drive to Green Bay, I'm already exhausted."

"Well," she turned over and looked at the man next to her, his tousled blonde hair making him look adorable and boyish. She ran her hand through it as he opened his blue eyes to look up at her impishly, a silly grin on his face, "it wasn't me who insisted on taking a redeye flight here to Chicago and arriving at 3:00 am. In fact, you should be more awake because you're still on London time, which would mean that to you, it's after 1:00 pm."

"But I spent eight hours on a plane," he groaned.

"Your fault, you wanted to be here," Stephanie told him. "It's good to see you though."

"Well, after being gone for a month, I was hoping for a little more response than 'it's good to see you though,'" he teased and she rolled on top of him.

"Whatever do you want from me, Mr. Irvine?"

"I can think of a few things," he said, "but right now, I just want to sleep, I'm still exhausted and when I was on tour, I'll have you know that sometimes, I _did_ sleep later than one."

"Disgusting," she burrowed against his skin. In this world and hell, in the other world too (though it didn't matter to her over there) Chris had been gone for a month touring with Fozzy, but had come home to her the night before. "I missed you."

"I missed you too," he kissed the top of her head as she closed her eyes, safe and warm in his embrace. "Did the kids miss me?"

"They've been bouncing off the walls missing you. You should probably keep it down because if they hear you in here, there's going to be a riot in this hotel room."

"They're like their old man, not morning people," Chris told her, rubbing her back, "if they're my kids at all, they'll still be sleeping."

"Uh huh," she said.

"So tell me again, what happened at that meeting with your dad?"

"He wants to take away the Mr. McMahon character again and you, my darling, love of this life," she carefully worded herself, "are going to be taking over for him."

"So he decided he just couldn't pull the trigger on retirement," Chris mused. "I knew that crafty old bastard wouldn't do it. I told him time and time again that he wasn't going to do it and he kept telling me in that voice of his, 'No, Chris, I think it's time my daughter takes over for me,' I knew he wasn't going to."

"Give him a break, he loves what he does," she pouted. "Besides, we should be happy, you're coming back and nobody expects it, not one, single person suspects that you're making your triumphant return tonight."

"That's true, it'll be good to get back in the ring, even if it is just to fire…wait, I get to fire your dad tonight, this is going to be great!" Chris exclaimed and Stephanie pushed him away before she sat up.

"We really should get up and get going, there's a lot to do today," Stephanie said, pushing the covers off before she grabbed her wedding ring off the nightstand. "You want to help get the kids up? They'll be so excited to see you."

"Sure, you get Rora, I get Murphy and Vaughn?"

"Deal," she said as they got out of bed. Chris hugged Stephanie to him as they walked into the other room.

"Were they any trouble while I was gone?"

"Yes, but I love them anyways," she told him, "like I love you."

"I love you too," she said, kissing him under ear. They walked into the other room where Aurora was sleeping in one bed, Murphy in the other, and Vaughn was asleep in the crib they'd gotten for the room. Chris untangled himself from her arms and went over to wake up Murphy.

Stephanie took in the scene for a moment. This was one of the biggest and most obvious changes in the two worlds, while Aurora was almost exactly the same with a few small feature changes she attributed to Chris (Aurora looked more like her than anything), Murphy and Vaughn had two glaring differences from the Murphy and Vaughn in her other world; they were both little boys. In both worlds, she loved the names Murphy and Vaughn and they'd stuck (and were easier to remember than having six kids with different names).

Stephanie walked over to Aurora's bed and shook the little girl awake a little, "Rora, we have to get up, we're going to Raw tonight."

"Go away," the grumpy little girl said, pushing away at Stephanie.

"You have to get up," she laughed at her little girl who was stubborn in both worlds. "Come on, we'll go get breakfast and everything."

"No," Aurora asserted as she turned on her side.

Stephanie leaned in closer and whispered to her, "Daddy's here."

This made Aurora's eyes open wide and she turned over again and saw Chris in the other bed, getting a gigantic hug from Murphy, the little blond boy with the smoky gray eyes delighted to see his father after so long. Aurora was scrambling out of bed and over to the other bed so she could get in on the hug as well. Stephanie sat there and watched them and fell in love with the picture. Sometimes she loved that she had two lives because it did mean twice the great moments and memories. Chris looked over at her and nearly glowed from happiness. Then there was the business of her loving two different men at the same time.

It had been eleven years and she still hadn't made her clear choice.

Blink.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thank you SO much for the awesome response to the first chapter. I know a lot of you were shocked that I made H a likeable guy but I said it'd be different for me! ;) Anyways, I'm still getting a feel for how I want to write the chapters so bear with me. I hope you enjoy this one and you can let me know in a review. :)

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><p>Sometimes she tried to think of the logistics, tried to believe that there was some rhyme or reason to this entire life, but she could never find any. She wanted to understand how she could be pregnant, but have a boy in one world and a girl in the other. Because she lived in one world at a time, she'd only been to three births out of her six children. After Aurora, she'd been shocked when she switched worlds to find her child was a different gender. She could only believe that she did have some doppelganger that was stuck in the same loop she was, living her life when she wasn't, confused as she was.<p>

"Hey, where are you at?"

Stephanie looked over at her husband, "My thoughts was where I was at."

"You think too much, you've always thought too much," Chris told her, wrapping his arm loosely around her shoulder. "Why did I get such a thoughtful wife?"

"I'm not sure," she said and she really couldn't be sure. A lot of her thoughts were trying to keep both worlds straight. But then she would remind herself to enjoy the world she was in because she never knew when she'd wake up in the other one. She would be lying if she said sometimes she didn't miss her other life while she was living one. Things were always slightly different in each world so it was perfectly acceptable to miss it, wasn't it?

"There's your dad," Chris nodded towards her, "Hey, Vince, over here!"

"Daddy, don't yell," Aurora scolded him with a big sigh.

"Sorry," he said as Vince came over and sat down, "Hey, Vince, Stephanie tells me that you're still hanging around."

"And do you have a problem with that because your plan to take over my company by marrying my daughter has to be put on hold for a little while longer?" Vince asked jokingly. Stephanie was always a little startled with her father's brand of humor when it came to Chris. After she'd married Chris, her father seemed to lighten up in a lot of ways and she could never figure out why, if it was just because he really liked Chris or if it was because he was glad that she'd found a guy who would marry her.

"Damn, you caught me," Chris told him, snapping his fingers. "As soon as that company is in my possession, I was planning on divorcing Stephanie."

"Not funny," Stephanie slugged him in the side while he turned to give her a glowing smile. He always did that whenever she pretended to act mad at him, he would smile and she was a slave to that smile, at least here, where it was always directed at her.

"Sorry it had to come out this way," Chris said as Murphy climbed into Chris's lap, diverting his attention away. "So really, Vince, you had to hold off retirement for a little longer?"

"It's my company, I can do what I want. I think that conceding this to you for now-"

"Vince, the only thing you're doing is going off TV again," Chris pointed out.

"Which will usher in your return and what better way to do that, in essence, I'm really doing this all for you," Vince told him and Chris chuckled, "you laugh at me now, but your return is going to be talked about and that's what we want."

"I can talk," Murphy said, his chin leaning on the table in front of him, "I can do that."

"I'm sure you could," Vince said, "but I think your mom and dad will probably want to hold off on that for a little while."

"I'm older, I can go out there and do something," Aurora said defiantly. The funny thing about both worlds was that Aurora, despite who her father was, Chris or Paul, she was the same sassy, little know-it-all in both worlds, with grumpy tendencies and pouts from here to kingdom come. It made Stephanie kind of scared about how she came off to people because the only common denominator with Aurora was her. "Right, Daddy?"

"You can do anything you want to do with anything," Chris told her and maybe the fact both Paul and Chris spoiled the hell out of her was a reason why she acted the way she did. Stephanie would have to work on that in both worlds, she made a mental note to herself. Sometimes she would write things on her hand to remind her of things to do in the other world so if she woke up there, she'd have the reminder with her on her person.

"Told you," Aurora said in a sing-song voice.

"Yes, Rora, you can do anything, but we'll wait for you to be on the show for a while too, okay?" Stephanie said, hoping to curb her daughter's attitude just a tiny bit.

"I guess so," Aurora said while giving a smile that lit up her face and reminded Stephanie why she loved her daughter so very much.

"So are you ready to come back then? Or do you have flights of fancy still in you?" Vince asked Chris and Chris chuckled at the preposterousness at Vince's phrasing.

"Flights of fancy?" Chris guffawed. "So you call me making a successful career out of my music as a flight of fancy?"

"When it involves someone in their 40's, yes, I do," Vince told him and he and Chris had to forcibly hold in their laughter. "At that age, isn't being in a band something that old men do to recapture their youth?"

"I don't see you in a band…oh wait, you just use wrestling for that purpose," Chris said and this time they both did start laughing, which made the kids laugh because they didn't know what was funny, but something was so they wanted to be in on it.

"Okay, you two, do you just want to measure right now or something?" Stephanie asked. "Because I'll take the kids and we can just leave."

"We're just having fun," Vince said, "I'm glad to have this bastard back working for us, it's about damn time. I will never understand your need to leave when you're married to my daughter."

"He likes to have a life outside of wrestling, sue him," Stephanie said, looping her arm through Chris's and leaning her chin on his shoulder. "I, for one, am proud of him and proud of everything that he's been able to do when he's not wrestling. Fozzy is getting really successful, Dad, you have no idea. They're starting to play bigger and bigger venues and Chris is gaining a real name for himself in the world of rock and metal."

"Steph, I don't think he needs my whole musical bio," Chris told her, but the way he looked at her told him that he was really touched by what she'd said. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her lips. "Thanks," he whispered as he pulled away.

"Either way, it's good to have you back."

"Daddy, I like you wrestle," Murphy told him, leaning his head back to look at Chris. Chris looked down at him and stuck out his tongue.

"Well, we'll have to see what we can do about that," Chris told him. "I'm going to do good by you, Vince, not because I like you, but because I would never do anything to make this lady look like a fool for marrying me."

Stephanie shook her head, "Like I could ever regret that decision."

Chris looked at her tenderly, "I intend to make sure you never regret it."

Blink.

Stephanie groaned as she woke up. The night before, Chris had done a spectacular job with his return. He'd come out to cheers from the crowd as he took over Vince's position and sent Vince packing. Vince had even congratulated him backstage after Chris had worked the crowd like a pro, going around and shaking kids' hands and taking pictures with the fans crowded around ringside. The crowd was already loving the fact that he was "in charge."

"You were great last night," Stephanie mumbled as she turned over.

"Thanks," came the gruff voice and she tensed for a second before opening her eyes.

"Paul," she said, her heart racing a little at the unexpectedness of his presence.

"What's wrong? You tensed like you weren't expecting me," he told her, holding her closer.

"I guess I just didn't expect you to be awake," Stephanie said, hoping he wouldn't think about the fact that she'd just spoken to him like he was awake. She was kind of bummed that she wasn't with Chris, only because she wanted to tell him how great he'd been the night before. She closed her eyes again and could picture Paul as Triple H taking over for her father and it seemed to have gone well as well. It was always odd carrying two opposing memories that she could almost play in her brain side-by-side.

"Sorry?" he laughed. "Should I go back to sleep?"

"No," she said, turning over and smiling gently at him. "I just…you were good last night."

It wasn't the guy that she wanted to say it to, but it had to suffice for now and she only hoped that the doppelganger was telling Chris the same thing. "Thanks," Paul said, "but I've been ready to assume this role for a long time."

"I know," Stephanie said. "I almost didn't expect my father to go through with it."

"Well, he knows it's better for him if he steps down now and gives us the opportunity to show that we can run the company. Besides, with your mother running for office again, he's going to need to be there with her."

"You're right," Stephanie said. "He wanted to meet us for breakfast at the little café across the street."

"Yeah, I think Nancy might have already gotten the girls up and fed," Paul said, sitting up. "She said she was taking them to a park that she saw a couple blocks over. That should occupy them until we go home this afternoon."

"That's nice," Stephanie said, still feeling a little put out that she couldn't tell Chris how proud she was of him. That was a downside to this life she was forced to lead. By the time she got back to Chris, it might be too late to tell him how wonderful he'd been out there.

"You sure you're okay?" Paul asked as he started to grab some clothes out of his suitcase.

Stephanie followed his lead and stood up, going over to her own suitcase and rooting through it, wondering what her doppelganger had packed for her. She grabbed a black pencil skirt and a white button down blouse. Her life with Paul didn't afford many t-shirts and jeans, which was what she had packed when she was with Chris, who always opted for comfortable over professional. Paul had really taken to the lifestyle her father lead and was now a suit kind of guy.

When they made their way down for breakfast, they looked like the most professional couple on the planet, exuding power and confidence as they held hands crossing the street. Her father was already waiting for them at the restaurant and he shook both their hands before sitting down again. "I just want to commemorate your first morning in charge with breakfast on me," Vince said.

"Not necessary, Vince," Paul told him, "I'll take care of it."

"No, I insist," Vince waved his hand. Paul and Vince had always had a friendly relationship, but their personalities were not predisposed to comedy and humor like it was when she was with Chris. It was simply a different dynamic and one she had to adapt to, like many of the situations she found herself in when in two different worlds. "I want to do this and I want to tell you that you two have a lot of responsibility ahead of you and I hope you can handle it."

"Of course we can," Stephanie said, "I've been groomed for this since I was a little girl, Dad. I know that I can handle the responsibilities that come along with being the President. I'm fully prepared to take on that role."

"And I'm ready to be the COO," Paul said, grabbing Stephanie's hand and giving it a squeeze.

"We want to do right by you, Dad," Stephanie said. "That's all I've ever wanted to do."

"I trust both of you," Vince looked between both of you. "One slip up though and I'll be on my way to Titan so fast."

"Trust me, Dad, you have nothing to worry about, we're going to run this company as well as it can possibly be run," Stephanie told him and she knew she could. In her other world, her father hadn't been able to back down, but she was ready to step in and take over, it was just a matter of who was by her side. In this case it was Paul and she knew that he would rule with an iron fist, which was what the backstage might need. Things had been too loose for too long. Her phone started to ring and she excused herself from the table to answer it.

"Hello, Stephanie McMahon-Levesque speaking?"

"Stephanie, it's Chris Irvine."


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Thanks again for all the reviews for this one, I hope that you'll continue to enjoy it and review it. :)

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><p>"Stephanie, are you there?"<p>

Stephanie caught herself for a moment. It wasn't like she hadn't interacted with Chris over the years in this world, but she hadn't talked to him in a while and to have it come so soon after she had just been with him and had wanted to talk to him, it was a little bit jarring. She missed his voice sometimes when she was here. In her other world, Paul was always around so if she missed hearing his voice, all she had to do was go to a show and there he'd be and she could talk to him.

"Stephanie?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," she told him, "I'm being very rude."

"No, you're being very weird," he joked. She smiled. In this world, he was exactly the same except that she wasn't married to him. Sometimes it was difficult seeing the man she loved in a completely different life, but then, in each world, she loved her family and loved her life so it made it easier to be away from one or the other whenever she had to leave her own world.

"No, I'm not," she teased. She and Chris had a warm relationship in this world, but she wouldn't call them friends. They were colleagues and when they were working together, they got along, but, like in the other world, she tried to keep some kind of distance because it was weird and hard being around someone you were married to, but not technically wherever she was.

"A little, yes."

"So what did you need, Chris?" Stephanie asked. "I'm at breakfast so you're going to have to make this quick."

"Oh, well, I can try. Your dad actually called me asking me to come back and he said to contact you and not him if I thought I wanted to come back. I'm actually not thinking about it right now, but I'm not ruling it out as an option in the near future."

"What do you mean by near future?" she asked. She really wanted Chris back in the company. His absence was noticeable and with the new youth movement they needed as many veterans as they could get to really help out the younger guys ad guide them in the right direction.

"Like the beginning of the year," Chris said, "around Royal Rumble if that's at all possible. I've got a tour at the end of the year and so that wouldn't be a really good time for me. Is there any way that I can meet with you soon?"

"Yeah, just call my secretary and make an appointment, maybe sometime next week if you can get away?" Stephanie told him, knowing that he had a wife and children at home, a wife he'd met shortly after she'd accepted Paul's offer to for a date and not Chris's.

"Thanks, I guess I'll see you later, Steph, have a nice breakfast."

"Bye, Chris," she said, trying not to sound wistful. She'd see him again, whether it was in this world or her other world, she'd see him again so there was no reason to be so upset. She walked back to the table where her father and her husband seemed to be having a pretty intense conversation. Stephanie sat back down and they both smiled at her.

"Who was on the phone?" Paul wondered.

"It was just Chris, you know, Irvine," Stephanie said. "He wanted to talk to me about a possible return. He said that you asked him to contact me about it, Dad."

"Ah, my last piece of official business," Vince said, trying to sound nostalgic and not at all like he wasn't going to butt his nose into the business all the time. While he was retiring from most duties, he was still the active CEO so it wasn't like his role was completely diminished. "I figured it was time for that crafty bastard to come back."

"He said that this year wasn't feasible, but that next year seems like a good possibility, sometime before the Royal Rumble, which I think is perfect. In fact, we can even have him _win_ the Royal Rumble, he's never done that before," she said, trying not to sound eager. Sometimes she found that she was a little too enthusiastic about her non-husbands when she was with her husbands. In 2002 when Paul had come back from his quad injury, Stephanie had nearly been bouncing with anticipation to the point where Chris had to ask how many cups of coffee she'd had that day. In reality, in Paul's world, she'd seen how hard rehab had been so she felt excited for his return in both worlds.

"That's excellent, enough time to build for a WrestleMania program. We should…I mean, you should probably have Randy holding the title since we do want a little continuity going into the match. That way we can have Chris coming back for revenge."

"Wow, Dad, now that you're semi-retired, you seem to remember there's such a thing as continuity," Stephanie joked with him.

"I do remember from time to time," Vince said as his phone buzzed itself. Vince looked at it, "damn it, this is something important. I'm probably going to need to take this in my hotel room, are you two okay eating by yourself?"

"Of course, Dad," Stephanie nodded and Vince nodded himself before picking up the phone and leaving. Stephanie stood up and took the seat her father had just vacated. She looked at her husband, who seemed deep in thought and she patted him on the hand. "You've been awfully quiet. What does the COO think about this? I want your input on things now, not that you didn't give it before, but I'd like your thoughts on how we can bring Chris back."

"Are you sure we _need_ to bring him back?"

"Paul, please do not bring this up again," Stephanie said, rolling her eyes. She hated when he got like this. Not that what he thought didn't have foundations, but the foundations were in a world that might as well be a million miles away.

"I just think we're doing fine without him and to think that we _need_ him is placing too much value on the guy, I think, but that's just my opinion," Paul told her rationally, but she knew why he was doing it and it bothered her.

Paul didn't necessarily hate Chris, but he certainly didn't like him. And it all stemmed from the one night that started this entire mess of a life she was leading. Paul had heard, after the fact, that Chris had asked her out on the same night and while in this world she'd turned Chris down, this mere fact, this one, tiny detail, the idea that Chris had ever been interested in her was enough to sour the idea of Chris Jericho in Paul's head for the rest of his life. God, if he only knew what her life was like.

Ever since then, Paul had kept a critical eye on Chris, constantly wanting to push him down in some macho attempt at supremacy. It wasn't enough that Stephanie had married the guy and had three of his children, he was always looking over his shoulder like Chris was going to steal everything away. There was nothing to worry about here because she _had_ Chris and she didn't need Chris in two worlds, that was just being selfish, just like she didn't need Paul in two worlds. He was perfectly happy in his other one.

"Well, while your opinion is valid, it's also biased," Stephanie reminded him.

Paul shrugged, "I heard things."

"What do you hear?" she asked good-naturedly, knowing this ought to be good.

"I heard that he and his wife are having problems and maybe he has his eye back on you or something."

"Paul, sweetheart, I love you very much, but it's been 11 years, I think it's time to get over things. I'm pretty committed to you."

Paul laughed and looked down, "Yeah, I know, I know, you're right, it's just, I still think you settled. I mean, you're pretty damn hot when you want to be."

"When I want to be?"

"All the time," he corrected himself and she nodded her head like he better have changed his answer to one she wanted to hear. She leaned across the table and gave him a kiss.

"Now maybe we can have breakfast because I'm starving."

"Yeah, of course," he said, then he added, "Steph, I do think having him back is a good idea. I may not totally like the guy, but I will admit that he's great for the company's image and that all his outside projects bring in people."

"Wow, my kisses are like magic," she teased him and he groaned, but grinned at her and grabbed her hand to kiss her knuckles. "Thank you for being so reasonable."

"I figure that's how I need to be at this point in time, right?" Paul said. "I've got to start thinking objectively, what's good for the company. If that means I have to overlook certain feelings I have for certain people, I need to do that."

"Mature too!" Stephanie pressed her hand against her chest. "I never thought I'd see the day!"

"Okay, okay, I get it, you can stop teasing me now, got it?" Paul was trying to act like it didn't matter, but he could be very sensitive when it came to being teased. It was easier to joke with Chris because he gave as good as he got, but Paul was not much of a joker. He was much more intense.

"I'm sorry," she told him, "you're just such an easy target."

"So I've been told," he said and she just gave him an encouraging smile before going back to what she wanted for breakfast.

Stephanie had stayed in this world for a week now and she missed Chris and Aurora and the boys, but she tried not to let it show. Chris was scheduled to meet with her the next Wednesday and as each day passed that she wasn't in the other world with her other family, she began to anticipate the meeting even more because she missed her other family. By the time Wednesday rolled around, she was going into work early.

"Steph, you don't even have anything this morning," Paul told her as she grabbed a piece of toast and buttered it quickly. Their personal chef had outdone herself this morning, but she just didn't have the time.

"I know, but I've got a busy day ahead of me, honey," Stephanie said, kissing the girls cheeks as she passed. "I don't really have time to sit down and have breakfast, but tell Emily that she made a beautiful breakfast and to pack it up, we can have breakfast for dinner tonight or something."

"Are you sure you can't sit and eat?" he asked.

"I'm sure," she said, giving Vaughn an extra loud, smacking kiss on her cheek. "I should be home early tonight though so you have plenty of time to spend with me." She gave Paul a kiss before taking a bite of her toast and lighting it out of the house. She felt bad for being in such a hurry, but she did have things to do so it wasn't necessarily a lie.

She unconsciously checked herself in the mirror she had on her desk when her secretary announced Chris was there, then laughed at herself for being silly. This wasn't _her_ Chris and she couldn't pretend that it was. She stood up when he entered and her breath caught in her throat because it made her miss her Chris all the more.

"Chris!" she exclaimed, going up to him and hugging him, probably a little longer than she should and then she realized they weren't exactly huggers in this world and pulled back. "Excuse me, how unprofessional of me. It's just been a while."

Chris patted her on the back before she pulled away fully and didn't look put out at all. "It's okay, I'm very missable."

If only he knew how true that was sometimes. "Come, sit down, how're Jessica and the kids?"

"They're doing great," he told her, "How's Paul?"

"He's doing well in his new position, taking some getting used to," she answered.

"And Aurora, Murphy, and Vaughn?" he asked and hearing the names from his mouth made her think of her other headstrong, little Aurora and her boys. She hoped they were doing well and her heart ached just a little at thinking about them.

"Growing like weeds," she told him, "so, business, you coming back, you will then?"

"I will, let's discuss it."


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Thanks for enjoying this crazy story. I'm trying to balance it out, but if I'm doing a bad job, just let me know. Hope you enjoy the chapter. :)

* * *

><p>Stephanie rolled over in her sleep and was met with a mass of warmth and solidity. She smiled to herself as she cuddled up to the body next to her. She loved weekend mornings because there were no schedules to keep up, no hectic pace to try and keep up with, and the chance to actually sleep in. She smiled without opening her eyes and gave a deep sigh of contentedness.<p>

"Well you seem happy and relaxed."

Stephanie's smile grew even wider. She opened her eyes and looked up at her husband, "It's so good to see you."

"Because seeing me when you closed your eyes last night was _such_ a long time," Chris joked. "It's okay, I understand, even being away from me in your sleep is too long and I really don't blame you, considering the fact that I'm me and I'm well…me."

"Don't get too cocky now, mister," Stephanie laughed against his skin, breathing in his scent. Chris wore the most wonderful cologne and it lingered on his skin sometimes, even after he'd taken a shower and the scent was so faint, but still so warmly comforting.

"Me? Cocky? You must have me mixed up with some other handsome, funny, talented gentleman," Chris joked and she pinched him on his side. "Ouch, abuse, abuse! You're so mean to me sometimes."

"Yet you stay with me."

"As if I had any other prospects," Chris said, "you easily forget that there are tons of women out there who want me, but don't know me, you, on the other hand, know me and love me for it, which is the best thing for me. Someone who puts up with me."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm the best, it can't be denied," Stephanie smiled, kissing his chest. "I wish we could stay in bed all day."

"Let's just run away then, we'll run away from home. It could work," Chris said, "I don't think anyone would really miss us. The kids could go to your parents and we'll just run away."

"Will we pack a little hobo pack too?"

"Yup, we'll ride the rails to California," Chris told her, running her hands through her hair. "At least we don't really have anything to do today. Wait, no, that's not true, you have that meeting with Paul today."

"I do?"

"Did you forget?"

"I guess I did," Stephanie said. A meeting with Paul? God, in her other life, she'd had a meeting with Chris, now she had a meeting with Paul. It wasn't that she didn't like Paul in this world, but…he was just different here. She couldn't put her finger on the why of it all, but he was gruffer, almost meaner here. But then again, she knew little to nothing about his personal life in this world. He was single, but he seemed happy to date around so she figured he was happy. "I don't want to have a meeting with him."

"It was the only time he was available and you know how he can get if he doesn't get his way," Chris said. "I don't know what that guy's problem is."

"He doesn't have a problem," Stephanie said, going to bat for him, even though she had no ties to him in this world. "He just likes to get things done and be in the know."

"With all that knowing, you'd think he'd want you all for himself," Chris said and Stephanie smirked. It was so rare that Chris showed jealousy over anything so when he did, she took the time to savor it.

"Why Mr. Irvine, I do believe that you are jealous," Stephanie pointed out. "I never thought I'd see the day that _you_ would be jealous over something so trivial."

"I'm not jealous, believe me," Chris said, "there's nothing to be jealous about. I know you love me and I know you want to be with me. I love being with you, so there's no problems there. I actually don't have that big of a problem with Paul on the whole, we talk, he's just too into the business, you know."

"It's not the only thing he has if that's what you're thinking," Stephanie said, "I think he has a girlfriend."

"He does, her name is Jamie, she's supposedly pretty cool according to him, we talked the other week when he came to bug me about getting back into the title picture after his last injury," Chris told her. She looked up at him. "Don't look so surprised. I told you, I don't hate the guy."

It was such a difference to Paul in her world. Paul could hold grudges, but Chris was never one to hold a grudge. He just didn't have it in him to hold grudges. She wished her Paul would learn that and she resolved to help him work on that whenever she was with him again. It wasn't that she wanted Paul to be more like Chris or Chris to be more like Paul, but sometimes, even in both worlds, there were things she'd like to change about her husbands. Chris was a workaholic and while she was to some extent, Chris was a million times worse and it was something she was working on, slowly but surely.

She didn't want him to completely give up all his engagements and tours, but it would be nice if he scaled back on them. Instead of being gone for a month on tour, maybe he could just do two week tours. She wanted the kids to see him as much as possible and that was something big in her life. She wanted her kids to have two involved parents. Before her own parents had bought the WWF from her grandfather, they had been very attentive and she'd seen how, after they'd bought the company, little they were there for her afterwards and she wanted better for her own kids.

"I know you don't," Stephanie said. "Hey, before I forget anything else and we officially start our day because I have a good feeling that Vaughn is going to be waking up very, very soon and very cranky because he can be a cranky, little boy, are you planning on going anywhere any time soon?"

"What do you mean?" he asked. "Do you mean do I have plans for today?"

"No, what I mean is do you have anything that will cause you to travel for anything other than wrestling? Are there any pressing things in Los Angeles, any tours for Fozzy, any appearances elsewhere?"

"No, I don't think so. I would have to check my schedule, but no, why do you ask?" he wondered.

"I just don't want to miss you again," she hugged him tighter.

"Besides, why in the hell would I leave when Aurora and Murphy's birthdays are next week?" Chris said. "Like I was going to miss my daughter's fifth and my oldest son's third birthday. I would never do that. I've been here for every one of their birthdays, from the very beginning."

"I know," Stephanie said, sitting up finally and then leaning over to kiss him. "I better go check on Vaughn."

"I'll go get breakfast started. What do you feel like?"

"Surprise me," she told him, wiggling her eyebrows a little bit. She loved Saturdays with Chris. She would get the kids up, he would make breakfast and they'd all sit around the kitchen table and eat together. Sometimes she and the kids would help Chris with the cooking and it was all laughs and fun. Saturdays were usually their family days and she would not change it for the world.

She walked into her son's room and saw that he was already awake, sitting up in his crib and just watching the little toy TV they had hanging on one side that played some little skits of different nursery rhymes every time you pushed a button. Stephanie came over and leaned over the crib, smiling down at him. The worst part about two worlds was missing her children and hoping they were doing okay when she wasn't there. When Vaughn saw her, his eyes lit up and she could feel her heart burst at the sight. She was eager to hold him and picked him u, hugging her to him.

"Good morning, Vaughn monster," she told him affectionately. "God, I've missed you, little one. I don't know how I survive without you."

Vaughn just smiled up at her and grabbed onto her hair. He could say a few words, but he was a pretty quiet little boy and he preferred to let everyone else do the talking. "Daddy is making breakfast."

"Yum," Vaughn told her with a toothy grin. She couldn't believe her little boy was going to be a whole year old next month. She'd been there for this Vaughn's birth and she could remember holding him in her arms so tightly, never wanting to let him go.

"Mommy, I'm up!" Aurora ran past the bedroom and was already heading downstairs.

"Me too!" Murphy ran past in a blur.

"Do not, I repeat, do not run down the stairs!" Stephanie called out to them. She sighed and looked at Vaughn. "What am I going to do with your brother and sister?"

"Dunno," Vaughn said quietly. Stephanie laughed and went to change his diaper before making a stop off at her office to see what time this meeting with Paul was. She looked down at her schedule and saw, in her own neat writing (which just corroborated the story that there had to be some other Stephanie) that her meeting was at noon. Only Paul would want to meet on a weekend.

Stephanie headed downstairs where Chris was letting Aurora stir some pancake batter while Murphy was pouring in some chocolate chips. Stephanie raised an eyebrow at Chris. "Sugar for breakfast?"

"I figured since you have to go into the office and I'm going to be with the kids all day, I would make it next to impossible to contain them," Chris told her. "It's okay though, I think I can still wrangle them in. We should build a pen in the backyard."

Stephanie rolled her eyes as Aurora turned her eyes to Stephanie "Mommy, we get to have chocolate for breakfast and it's like eating cookies for breakfast!"

"The day that Daddy gives you cookies for breakfast is the day that I leave Daddy," Stephanie gave a pointed, but good-natured look in Chris's direction as he sprayed some non-stick spray onto their griddle. "Does Daddy hear that?"

"Daddy reads loud and clear," Chris said as he took the batter from his kids. "So what are our plans today, children? Since Mommy has to work, what do you guys want to do?"

"Play," Murphy answered. Murphy was a very serious little boy, while her little girl Murphy was more on the shy side rather than serious. They shared some characteristics, but for the most part, all her kids were different, save for Aurora. She was lucky she had essentially six kids with only three pregnancies. It was one of the only perks in her slightly off-color life.

"I wanna do that too."

"Easy to please, I like that in kids," Chris joked and she had to admit, Chris was so much more at ease with domestic life. She didn't know why Paul was more serious, well, she did, they were two different people, but he ran the house like it was a wrestling match, calling out the shots ahead of time, following strict rules. Chris was more laidback and sometimes, it was just what she needed. Chris was very much a man who wanted no outside help with his family, which was why they didn't have nannies or cooks or housekeepers (well okay, they had someone come in once a week, but for the most part they didn't have anyone who helped them). It was a nice change of pace, but then sometimes she got so bogged down, she wanted a place where she didn't need to worry about the kids, the food, or the house.

Stephanie came over and hugged him around the waist before she helped him by heating up some sausages in the pan. He smiled over at her, his eyes lighting up with love for her. It was looks like that which made her feel so lucky to have her husbands and her children and her dual lives. It was tiring, but what would she give up? How could she choose which life to turn her back on when she had a husband who loved her in each and kids, she could never play Sophie's Choice with her children. They were individuals, they were her lives and yes, there were two of them.

But the two of them were perfect.


	5. Chapter 5

"We'll be _fine_."

Stephanie laughed and hugged her husband around the waist. She leaned over and kissed the side of his neck as well. She knew he knew she was just joking, but sometimes she would ask him if he could handle things because Chris could always handle everything. He was such a rock to her when she was here. Every time something seemed to go wrong, he was always the one to fix them. Whenever he said he was the best in the world at what he did, to her, he wasn't lying; he was telling the absolute truth.

"So you won't miss me at all?" she asked coyly.

"Do I ever miss you?" Chris asked with a wink. The question was strange for Stephanie, not strange in why it was asked, but just strange to think about her other self, for there had to be some other Stephanie, some doppelganger who looked like her and acted like her and _was_ her, but who was also stuck in this endless loop of two lives. She'd never get to meet this other Stephanie, but it would be nice to know the little things, to compare, to see what happened when she wasn't looking.

"All the time," she said.

"You sure you don't want me to drive you there? I can pile the kids into the car and drive you," he told her. "It wouldn't be a problem, the daycare is still there on the weekends, I could take the kids down there, they'd have stuff to play with while you have your meeting then we could do stuff as a family after you were done."

"Do stuff as a family?" Stephanie asked. Chris would be the first one to tell you if you asked how frightened he was when Stephanie was pregnant with Aurora. He'd spent so much time being a wrestler and not being a dad that when she'd told him she was pregnant with Aurora, he'd freaked out on her. He constantly questioned his ability to be a good father and she'd spent 39 weeks reassuring him he would be.

He just didn't know how their lifestyle would adapt to a child, but once she was here, once Chris held his little girl in his arms, he was a changed man. The marked difference from before she was pregnant to after she had Aurora was as noticeable to his acquaintances as it was to her. He drastically cut back on his partying and drinking, not to say he didn't occasionally still indulge, but his responsibility to his new family was so strong and had only grown stronger with time.

"I don't know, we could take the kids out somewhere. I figure Paul isn't going to keep you for hours, is he?" Chris asked her.

Her Paul could. Her Paul could talk about the show for hours. Where Chris was interested and loved the business, he had so many other interests, and he loved to talk about them. Sometimes they would talk for hours about music. Chris's music knowledge was even vaster than his wrestling knowledge, and each time they talked about music, she learned a little bit more. He was an endless wealth of topics. Chris was something of a renaissance man. He liked to dabble in a lot of things and become good in those things. It made him fascinating and always such a pleasure to talk with.

Paul was different when it came to wrestling. Wrestling was his first love, his last love, and every love in between when it came to his interests. Paul made wrestling his business. He loved it, which was why her father was so willing to hand it over to him, knowing he would do the best job he knew how. It wasn't that her father here didn't trust Chris, but Vince knew that Chris didn't just bring wrestling to the table. Her father wasn't stupid here, however, because he used Chris's connections to the best of his ability, and Chris was always more than willing to name drop his wife's company.

"You'd be surprised," Stephanie muttered to herself than widened her eyes at her words. She didn't often screw up, but every now and then, her other life would creep into whichever life she was leading.

It was never huge things, she remembered the huge things, but sometimes, she slipped because she lived two lives and it was bound to happen. They were mostly mundane things. Once, she called Murphy a she when she was with Chris and her little boy. He'd looked at her funny and asked if she was pregnant. Another time, when she was with Paul, she'd reminded him he had a meeting with a publisher, which didn't exist because it was Chris who had the meeting. They were little things, things like that, but she always wormed her way out of them. In comparison, this was nothing.

"I would?"

"Yes, when you were touring and what not, he would constantly come to talk to me, probably because he figured you weren't taking up my time as you are wont to do," Stephanie flirted with him. "He would just go on and on about the show."

"Could his nose get any browner, I swear," Chris shook his head and Stephanie bit her lip. She didn't like when one of her husbands badmouthed the other, even if they didn't realize it. They both had their good qualities, and they both had their bad qualities, but they were also both good men.

"He just loves wrestling, that's all."

"You'd think that was all he had," Chris chuckled, "I wonder if that's all he talks about with his girlfriend. I wonder if she's actually a ring rat, but you know, the kind that actually watches. You know, I'm surprised he never dated another diva after Joanie…maybe she screwed him up like he screwed her up."

Stephanie frowned. Her Paul felt so responsible for everything that went on with Joanie nowadays. She was constantly telling him it wasn't his fault, that her downward spiral had started so long ago, and he'd probably been one of the few bright spots in her life. What happened was not his fault, and she hated when people just assumed he'd done something horrible to her.

"You and I both know that's not what happened, Chris," Stephanie said with a slight edge to her voice. "You had firsthand interaction with Joanie, you know things were bad with her, that she was strange, don't act like that was all Paul."

"I know, geez, I was just joking," he told her. "I was just pointing out how into wrestling Paul is, not that there's anything wrong with that. I don't even think his girlfriend is a ring rat if you were worried about that too."

"I wasn't, I'm just trying to be nice to people, that's all," she said. Her lives were not without fights or petty arguments. She was so glad sometimes, when she woke up in another place during a fight with one of her husbands or other family members or friends. It was like being granted a reprieve, a fresh start if you will, and those were the times two lives seemed downright enchanting and lucky.

She was still human, she still got irritated. Just because she was living two separate lives didn't mean her frustration went out the window. She still had her temper. Usually a few days away calmed her down, and by the time she got back the fight was over, the other Stephanie handling things where she couldn't.

"Well, I do love that about you," Chris told her, his face softening and he leaned in for a kiss, their mini-fight over. She kissed him back, not wanting to waste her time here fighting with him when she could go back to her other life tomorrow. "So do you want me to give you that ride?"

"It's okay, I'll just come home afterwards," Stephanie said, "I don't want you guys to have to wait for me, that's not fair. I know there are toys there, but it could get boring for them, and I really don't know how long Paul will take."

"Are you sure?"

"Are you jealous?" Stephanie asked.

"No," he told her, shaking his head, "I'm not, why would you think that?"

"Because you're so adamant to drive me," Stephanie said, "why?"

"Because I'm kind of pissed that he chose Saturday to have a meeting with you," Chris told her. "Saturdays are our days, it's our day to spend time with the kids, not to think about work. Yet, here he is, needing another meeting, and I can tell you right now what the meeting is going to be about. He's going to want to come back, or he's going to criticize something with the two of you."

"Chris, you don't know that, and I'm sorry it's taking up our Saturday."

"I know _you_ are, but he's probably not."

"I can't control what he thinks." She'd never seen this side of him. Usually Chris was so cool about everything, the rational one. Paul was the one who held grudges and hated others. This wasn't Chris, but Paul was interrupting their weekend, and she knew it was probably going to be over something miniscule in the grand scheme of things.

"I'm sorry, I know this is work, it just frustrates me because I like spending time with you where work isn't the main topic of conversation," he sighed and she reached under his shirt to rub his back. "I'm just being stupid, we have a million Saturdays ahead of us and here I am, complaining about one."

"I'll keep the meeting to an hour at the most," she compromised with him. "Then I'll tell him to get the hell out of my office, deal?"

Chris laughed, "I can't imagine you doing that."

"Sure you can," she told him, scratching her nails along his skin. "You know how vicious I can be. I know Saturdays are important to you, and I know you like to spend them with me and the kids before the week takes me away. I promise I'll keep this brief."

Chris was a sensitive soul when it came down to it. For all his toughness and bravado, underneath was a guy who tended to wear his heart on his sleeve, but then, upon realizing what he was doing, would shove that same heart right back where it belonged. She understood him better than anyone though and knew what he was feeling. He loved his family, wanted to do right by all of them, and she admired him for it.

"Thanks," he conceded, telling her without telling her that this was what it was really about. He hated she had to leave at all, and it was under her scrutiny that he was able to really reveal himself.

"I would do anything for you, you know that," she told him, well, anything except tell him the truth about her life. She'd been keeping that secret forever. She loved her husbands, both of them, but if she told one of them, hell, if she told both of them, they'd think she was crazy, send her to therapy, try to get to the root of the problem…except there was no problem. This was just some crazy twist of fate, and she didn't believe herself sick, and didn't want others thinking she was sick.

"I love you," he told her, and it never got old hearing those words. Wherever she was, she could live with the love of this man, and the love of Paul. She carried both with her in her heart, carried their love wherever she was, even if the other didn't know it.

"I love you too," she told him. She never felt like she was betraying her other husband by telling the one she was with that she loved him. She loved them both, but for different reasons and under different circumstances.

"Thanks for not thinking I'm a complete freak or something."

"I would never think that," she told him, "and if I told you everything that went on inside of my head, you would surely think I was a freak."

"You're wrong."

For a moment, she wanted to confess. Sometimes, she wanted the truth to come out so badly she could taste the words on her lips. It would be such a nice thing to unburden herself from these lives she was leading. She wanted to believe Chris would understand, or Paul, but she knew neither one would. She closed her eyes and put on her best smile, reminding herself that she was loved twice over.

She wished he was right.


	6. Chapter 6

Stephanie smoothed down her blouse as she alighted from her car in the near empty parking lot. There were some people working everyday of the week here at Titan, but on the weekends, it was nearly a graveyard. Even she hardly came in on Saturdays unless she had a good reason. Because her meeting was only with Paul, she didn't dress for success as she usually did. Instead, she'd opted for a nice blouse and a dark pair of jeans with some killer heels that she always missed when she was in her other life. She had tried to buy them over there, but lo and behold, they'd been sold out before she could.

She knew it was silly to actually care about her appearance when Paul wasn't her husband in this timeline, but there was still part of her that wanted to look good for him. He was still her husband in some other time so she reasoned with herself. There was nothing wrong with looking good because maybe somewhere, somehow the other Paul was appreciating it. She walked into the building, nodding politely at the security desk, not needing to flash her badge because well, she was who she was.

She took the elevator up to her floor, where her office took up half of the entire floor. She hadn't always had the big office, but after she had Aurora and the boys, her father had insisted she get a new larger, more accommodating office. There were a few toys scattered here and there, but when the kids came here, they preferred going down to the daycare where there was an overabundance of things to play with. So instead, there was a lonely, little play area with its own TV that they used to occupy the kids sometimes.

Paul wasn't here yet, though, given his nature, she half-expected him to be sitting in front of her office, waiting for her and being very early. That's what her Paul would have done at least. She walked by her secretary's empty desk and picked up the small pile of notes from her inbox. She scanned them quickly, noting who she had to call before taking her key out and opening the door to her office. She stepped inside, the fading smell of roses permeating the room. She cursed under her breath as she forgot she'd had roses in here from the other day and they were now spreading petals all over her floor.

She walked over and grabbed the roses from the vase, shaking off the excess water and then dumping them into the garbage outside her office. They were a sweet gesture from her brother after she'd received some national recognition, but they had overstayed their welcome. She walked back inside and knelt down to pick up the petals. She could have just left them for the janitorial crew, but she didn't want them drying out and crumbling on her carpet.

"Laying out rose petals for me, I always knew I was worthy of special treatment, but this might be too far."

Stephanie was so startled by his sudden presence, she started to stand up quickly and hit the back of her head on the edge of the table. She hissed in pain, dropping all the petals as she clutched the back of her head. "Oh my God," she cried out in pain.

"Damn it, oh my God, Stephanie, I'm so sorry!" Paul rushed towards her side. "I didn't think I would scare you."

"Obviously," Stephanie gritted out in pain. She pulled her hand away from her head and cringed when she saw the crimson streak across her hand. She winced and pressed her hand back to her head.

"Stephanie, I'm so sorry, oh my God, I didn't, I'm so sorry," Paul rambled and she had to laugh at that. In her other life, Paul got like this whenever he did something wrong. He would ramble and stutter, and nobody would believe that this man, this man who always had something to say and was always so self-assured would turn to putty if he ever did something wrong.

"It's okay," Stephanie said.

"Let me look at it," Paul told her.

"No, really, it's okay," Stephanie attempted to stand up, but Paul pressed his hand to her shoulder.

"Come on, just let me look at it," he told her.

"Fine," she said, kneeling down as she gingerly took her hand away from her head.

She could feel Paul's fingers starting to separate the strands of her hair and she closed her eyes involuntarily. She didn't mean to, but it was just…this man was her husband in a different place, and even if they weren't married here, he was still the same man, and as such, his touch felt the same. It was silly to feel this way though, he was just checking her for a head wound. She couldn't get lost in his touch because she would never do that to Chris. She kept her lives separate for a reason. She didn't want to cheat on Chris with Paul here, and she didn't want to cheat on Paul with Chris in her other world.

"This might need stitches, Stephanie," Paul told her, pulling his hands from her hair. He tilted his head to look at her and saw her eyes closed, "Steph, are you okay? Hey, hey, hey, look at me."

"Huh?" Stephanie turned her head and looked him. Paul searched her eyes, looking back and forth between her eyes. "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to see if you have a concussion."

"I don't, I'm fine," she told him, shaking her head. She couldn't believe she let herself get so lost in his touch. Maybe she just missed Paul in her other world.

"You might not, you should go to the emergency room, look, I'll take you," Paul said. "You might need stitches on your head. It looks pretty deep and there's quite a bit of blood. I'd feel better if you did."

"Okay," she relented because she knew Paul wouldn't just leave her alone. He wasn't that type of guy. "Let me just call Chris. He'll want to know what's going on."

"Yeah, of course, do you want me to call him?"

"No, no, no, you calling him would only make him more anxious," Stephanie laughed as she thought about Paul calling Chris. Chris would probably freak out and then curse out Paul in every language Chris knew how to curse (which was a surprising amount).

"Okay," he said, helping her stand up. She walked over to her desk, picking up her phone with her good hand and then pulling the other away from her head, but realizing it was still covered in blood. "Here, let me dial for you."

"He's speed dial #1," she told him and he smiled and snorted a little while laugh. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing, it's just kind of cute, I don't even know why," he said.

"What did you expect my first speed dial to be?"

"Your dad," he admitted.

"Number two," she told him. Paul dialed the speed dial to Chris and he picked up on the second ring.

"Hey, you done?"

"I haven't even been gone that long," she laughed, "are you that desperate to see me?"

"Um, yes, I miss you," he told her cheekily, and she could tell he was smiling that grin of his that she knew melted her heart. She didn't even have to see it to have it melt her heart right now. She looked to Paul, who looked decidedly embarrassed and he pointed to the door, indicating that he would wait outside for her. She nodded slightly. "So what's going on? To what do I owe the pleasure? Is Paul just talking and talking and you're just on the phone talking to me and he doesn't even realize?"

Stephanie rolled her eyes playfully. "Yes, I'm talking to you while he's talking. What do you take me for?"

"My wife," he told her, "but seriously, what's up?"

"I hit my head and I'm bleeding—"

"Why didn't you immediately tell me!" Chris interrupted. "Stephanie, are you kidding me with this! You need to tell me these things immediately!"

"I'm sorry, it's not that bad, but Paul said I should probably go to the emergency room in case I need stitches."

"I'll meet you there, are you going to the one in Greenwich?"

"Yeah, but Chris—"

"Don't even argue with me, I'm coming there! I just have to get the kids."

He hung up without even saying goodbye and Stephanie smiled wistfully as she hung up the phone. She loved her husband so much. When she'd gone into labor, he was right there, getting everything she needed, doing everything she could. One time, she'd sprained her ankle and he wouldn't even let her walk, carrying her everywhere she needed to be. Paul let her be a little more self-sufficient when she got hurt with him, but it wasn't in a mean way. They just both treated her differently according to their personalities.

"You ready?" Paul asked.

"Yeah," she grabbed her purse, but Paul took it.

"You don't want to get blood on it," he told her. Then he held out some paper towels. "I figured you could hold this to your head instead of your hand."

"Oh, thanks," she took it from him gratefully, pressing the paper to the back of her head. She was starting to feel the edges of wooziness so she accepted his help walking down to his car.

"I really am sorry," he told her as he started the car once they were both inside. "I didn't think you'd get so startled.

"It's okay, I'm not mad at you, but next time, you know, maybe clatter some garbage cans, clear a throat, stomp, make your presence known."

"Will do," he said, trying to laugh, but he felt like an asshole for what he'd done. She could tell he was embarrassed, and for a moment, she wanted to comfort him, but this was not her Paul, and she would simply have to sit there and let him stew. His girlfriend would take care of things for him.

"What did you need to talk about anyways?"

"Oh, you know what, it's nothing that can't wait. It was just about my return, and I really wanted to get a match going soon."

She laughed, then realized what she'd done. He glanced at her with consternation, "I'm sorry, it's nothing, we can definitely start talking about that." She was sorry she laughed, but Chris had been right. Paul could be so predictable sometimes. It wasn't a bad thing, but sometimes she wondered if he had any hobbies here, anything he liked to do. What _did_ he talk about with his girlfriend? She giggled again, trying to hold it in, but damn, it was so difficult because it was _funny_.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked, wondering if she really did have a concussion.

"Yeah, just thinking about Chris."

"Oh, okay…so hey, how are your kids?" Paul wasn't totally convinced she didn't have a concussion so he wanted to keep her talking.

"They're great," Stephanie answered, her mind briefly flitting to her children with Paul. She missed them and pushed them out of her mind before her heart started to constrict in thoughts of her other children. "Growing like weeds. You should get some."

Paul was a good father, he should have kids here. "Maybe someday."

"You don't want to be too old."

"I know, but I want to make an honest woman out of Jamie before that happens. Call me old fashioned, but I want to do it the traditional way, marriage then the children. But I can see it happening with her."

"You'd make a good father," she told him. She knew from experience, but it's not like she could tell him that. He would probably think she definitely had a concussion if she told him that.

"Thanks, debatable, but thanks," he told her as they finally arrived at the hospital. Stephanie and Paul walked into the emergency room where Chris was already waiting, by himself. He clambered up from his chair and rushed over to Stephanie, looking disheveled.

"Where are the kids?" Stephanie asked.

"I dropped them off with your mom," Chris told her, taking in her appearance, his eyes stopping on her blood-stained hand. "Oh my God, Steph, what the hell happened?"

"I hit my head, Paul startled me while I was picking up some of the rose petals off the floor, from the bouquet Shane sent me," Stephanie explained as they walked towards the admitting desk. "I clipped it right on the edge of the side table."

"Nice going there, slick," Chris told Paul in a curt, sarcastic tone.

"It was an accident, Chris," Stephanie placed a placating hand on Chris's arm. "Nothing more, nothing less. I'll be fine."

"Okay," Chris said sheepishly, hating when Stephanie took that tone with him. She could tell he was just upset and his eyes wandered down to her bloody hand again. Stephanie stepped up to the desk to tell them what happened while Chris disappeared from her side. They told her to wait a few minutes while they got a space ready for her and a physician to look at her cut.

Stephanie sat down with Paul on one side of her while she looked around for Chris. He showed up a moment later with a wet paper towel in his hand. He sat on her other side, grabbing her hand and gently wiping the blood away with the paper towel. He didn't say anything as he continued to softly swipe at her hand, the dried blood now making the paper towel a soft pink hue. She looked up at him and gave him a soft smile. His lip crooked up on one side.

"Only you would get yourself into trouble like this," he told her good-naturedly, reaching up to brush his thumb across her cheek.

"It was an accident," she insisted, forgetting that Paul was even there as he leaned forward to kiss her lightly.

"Just don't hurt yourself again, my heart can't take seeing this," he held up the paper towel with her blood staining it.

"Mrs. McMahon-Irvine, we have a room ready for you, your husband might be able to fill out the forms, yes?" a nurse came up to them. Chris nodded.

"Hey, Steph, I'm going to go, we can talk later," Paul told her, "I really am sorry."

"It's okay, bye, Paul," she waved lightly at him. She'd completely forgotten he was there, but as she watched him go, she thought of her own Paul.

She hoped he was okay.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Thanks for the reviews for this really strange story. I really don't write a lot of H/Steph (clearly) so I do hope I'm doing them justice as this story is not supposed to be biased in either direction. Anyways, I do hope you enjoy it, no matter who you ship. Reviews would be lovely, so think about leaving one. :)

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><p>"Hey, morning, how's your head?"<p>

Stephanie kept her eyes closed for a moment longer. She didn't want to open them just yet. There was a part of her that wanted it to be another voice, a different voice. It wasn't like she chose when she switched back, and sometimes, she didn't want to switch back no matter how she missed her other family. Sometimes the world of pain settled in her chest, and she wished for one life, just one life, but she just didn't know which one she would choose if given the choice.

How could she stand in front of two doors, two lives that were beautifully messy in their own ways, and choose one? How would it be to open one door and shut the other one? How could she do that to a man she loved and children she loved even more? So she just had to endure, and yes, it was hard, yes, sometimes she almost begged for the blissful respite of death, but then something would pull her back from that dangerous edge.

She opened her eyes and smiled at Paul, "I think I'm doing okay."

"Let me check," he told her, and she smiled at his concern.

"Since when are you an expert at head wounds?" she asked, but she sat up, turning her back to him so he could examine the back of her head. His thick fingers brushed through her hair softly, and she could feel his thumbs skimming against her scalp in a calming fashion.

"Well, you've got one hell of a bump here," he told her, his finger gently pressing against the wound.

"Ouch," she yelped, her body moving forward without thinking about it.

"Sorry, sorry," Paul apologized, grabbing her waist in his hands and pulling her backwards towards him. "I didn't meant to touch it like that, I just wanted to see it better. It looks pretty nasty, but the stitches aren't that many."

She wanted to ask him what happened here, what did she do to hurt her head, but she knew it would only worry him. He would probably think she had a concussion or something like that, and she wasn't looking for another trip to the emergency room. One trip in one world was more than enough. Of course, there was a chance her brother sent her flowers in this world too, but under what circumstances would she have hit her head?

"Good, it just hurts," Stephanie said, wanting to reach out and rub it, but knowing it would only cause her more pain. "I guess I'm just clumsy I guess."

"No, it was my fault," Paul told her remorsefully, his voice tinged with guilt and embarrassment. "I shouldn't have tried to surprise you, I know how much you don't like to be surprised, but I just wanted to take you out to lunch, not to the hospital."

She laughed because he sounded so sad, "It's sweet that you wanted to do that. You should never apologize for wanting to take me to lunch. It's actually really nice to have you at the office everyday, it means I can come visit you whenever I want."

"It also means I can come see _you_ whenever I want," he tilted his head a little bit so he could gain access to her neck. He kissed it softly, his lips brushing against her pulse point, feeling her heart starting to quicken underneath his breath.

She felt a shiver going through her, and it was probably because it had been a while since she'd been intimate with Paul. She'd spent a while with Chris, and while her body loved being with Chris, she'd be remiss to say that it also loved being with Paul. It never felt like cheating when she was with one or the other. It was just how it was, and yes, she was lucky to have two men she slept with regularly, but she loved them both, so it wasn't like she felt wrong in all of this.

"And what does that mean?" she giggled as his fingers tickled her sides gently.

"Well, I don't know, what do you want it to mean?" he asked huskily, his breath dancing across her skin.

"If I'm ever going to get anything done today, I've got to get out of this bed," Stephanie joked with him, tossing the covers aside and leaving Paul stranded in the middle of the bed. He glared at her as if she'd done something wrong, and maybe she had, jumping out of her arms like that. She just shrugged and scurried into her closet, stopping for a moment when a bout of dizziness came over her.

Paul was at her side instantly, his hands back around her waist, but instead of them being there to entice her, they were there to steady her, "Hey, are you sure you're okay? Do you want me to take you back to the doctor's? I'm sure we can get in an appointment, I'll pay him extra."

"I don't think doctors work that way," Stephanie glanced at him. Paul wasn't one to exactly throw money around, but he was more comfortable spending it than Chris was. She wouldn't say Chris was cheap, but he was frugal. He didn't see the point in buying a lot of things or spending a lot of unnecessary money. She knew he'd grown up comfortably with his dad being a professional athlete, so she suspected this mentality stemmed from coming up in the business with next to nothing to his name.

"Well, I can make them work that way," Paul told her. "Seriously, is your head okay?"

"Yeah, I think I was just trying to do too much too quickly," she told him, giving him a reassuring smile when he continued to look at her with disbelief. She gave him another smile, hoping he would drop it, but he just studied her face even harder. "I'm not a child, Paul, I think I know my own self."

"But you hit your head really hard yesterday, and they told me to look for concussion symptoms, which is what I'm doing," he argued his point, and she couldn't say that it wasn't true. The doctor had told Chris the same exact thing, that concussion symptoms were varied, and they could appear even if it wasn't immediately. Chris had been alarmed before she went to bed, had made sure to look her in the eyes. He'd even made her recite her birthday, his birthday, the kids' birthdays, and their wedding date. Even that hadn't totally convinced him.

"I know, but I'm still here, right, that's got to account for something," she pulled away from him as she walked into the closet. He was close behind her, and she almost felt smothered. God, sometimes both her husbands could be worrywarts. If she had to recite birthdays for Paul too, she was going to scream. "I think I can find my underwear myself."

"I'm not taking any chances," he told her, leaning against the wall as he watched her. She stared at him for a minute, willing him to let her get dressed without his eyes following her every move, but he didn't budge.

"You're impossible," she said with exasperation. She hoped her other self in her other life was telling Chris the same thing because both of them were exasperating. Men, couldn't live with them, and she was blessed with two of them.

"_You're_ impossible," he shot back at her.

"Why don't you go tell Nancy to start getting the girls ready," Stephanie told him, "and I'm sure Emily is downstairs cooking up something fabulous, and didn't you want to go to the gym today."

It was easy to say that because Paul went to the gym every day. Well, that wasn't true. Sometimes, he worked out at home, but other days, he liked the company of other gym goers, called them motivation to work harder. "I'll go see if Nancy's awake, but then I'm coming back in here, no questions asked, okay?"

"Fine," she told him, and she wanted to be mad at him, but at the end of the day, she knew he was just worried about her, and she couldn't begrudge him that. Besides, she had spent almost a week with Chris, and she needed her family here too. They filled a gap in her soul that her life with Chris just couldn't fill, and vice versa when she was with Paul. Her soul, mind, and spirit needed both lives in order to be filled.

He left her alone and she was grateful for the moment of quiet. She sorted through her clothing, opting for something simple today. There was no way Paul would let her come into work, so she put on a pair of jeans and a loose-fitting t-shirt. It was appropriate for bumming around the house. She could do some work from her office, if her husband let her do any work. He would probably try to make her relax, knowing full well that she didn't exactly take much time to relax, not here anyways.

Her duties in this world had tripled since her father had relinquished his position within the company to her. He was still sitting on the Board of Directors, and he was still the CEO, but she was the President of the company, and with that came a lot more responsibility. In Chris's world, her father was still in charge, so she was sure her other self didn't feel as bad taking a sick day. In this world, she'd have to get some work done, even if it meant sneaking in some between Paul's worried check-ins.

She spun around when she thought she heard Murphy calling her and another bout of dizziness hit her. The room spun a little bit and she reached out to grab the nearest thing, which happened to be a drawer. The room swam in front of her as she tried to take deep breaths, but they were all shallow and she felt like she was going to throw up as the edges of her vision started to blur a little bit. Her knees hit the ground hard as she winced and tried to right herself, but it was no use.

"Stephanie!" She could hear a faint voice calling to her and she looked up, but the room was still spinning, albeit slower this time.

"Chris?" she whimpered, not really in her right mind. She didn't realize what she'd said, but her mind felt woozy, and she couldn't keep track of where she was. Had she really hit her head that hard? What was wrong with her? She'd had a little headache last night, but was traveling from one world to the other making it worse. Oh God, one world to the other!

She blacked out.

When she woke up, she was staring at the hospital ceiling. She didn't know it was the hospital ceiling but as she turned to the side and saw an IV bag, she figured she couldn't be anywhere else. She felt groggy and strange. She looked to her left and saw her mom sitting there. "Mommy?" she asked.

"Hey, you're back," Linda said. "You had a concussion, but the symptoms were so mild last night, they didn't realize it. I should sue the hospital for negligence. They should have kept you overnight for observation, but no."

"Mommy, it's okay," Stephanie told her mother in a small voice, one she remembered using when she was a little girl and not feeling well.

"Well, they're keeping you now, and you're going to get a CT scan for your head to make sure you're okay," Linda said. "You were in and out there for a while, but you were just so groggy because you hit your head again as you fell earlier."

"Great, just what I need, more damage," Stephanie tried to make a joke. "Where's Paul?"

"He's filling out some paperwork," Linda said, but she sounded funny in a way that unsettled Stephanie. She narrowed her eyes at her mother and studied her face. Linda refused to look her in the eye.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Stephanie asked. "The truth, Mom, none of this trying to make me feel okay because I'm injured crap. What's going on?"

"Well, when you were falling and dizzy, Paul said that you said the name Chris. He's a little upset about that because he can't figure out why you would call out for someone named Chris at that very moment."

She was screwed. She'd never done that before, at least not when she wasn't immediately aware of it, and concocted some story. Thankfully, she'd never yelled or said the wrong name in bed because _that_ would be worse than right now, but right now was a pretty bad situation. She smoothed out her face so her mother would be suspicious. They say a girl should be best friends with her mother, and in most aspects, Stephanie was her mother's best friend, but even Linda couldn't handle the truth about Stephanie's lives, not in this world or the other one.

Thinking quickly, she spoke, "The last thing I was thinking about was that I needed to call Chris Irvine about his return. We spoke recently about it, and I had just been struck with a great idea for a series of vignettes, I guess when I was dizzy, I was still trying to think about it."

There, that sounded believable and her mother looked satisfied. "Well, that's a little bit of a relief, I admit."

"I didn't even know I said it," Stephanie said, and it was the truth, "I wanted to do some work today, but I knew Paul wouldn't let me because of my head, I was just thinking about the things I could do without getting caught."

Linda stood up and patted Stephanie on the hand, "I understand, but I want you to take it easy now. No more work for a while, until you're all better."

"Okay," Stephanie said as a figure appeared in the doorway. It was her husband and she gave him a weak smile, "Hey, Paul."

"Hey," he said gruffly.

"I'll just leave you two to talk," Linda said, kissing Stephanie's cheek and then patting Paul on the arm as she passed.

"Paul, you need to listen to me."

"Just answer me this, Stephanie, why did you say the name Chris?"

She knew her explanation might not appease him, but she had to try. "Paul, I was just thinking about how I needed to call him because of his return. I knew you wouldn't let me do any work, but I was going to try and do some anyways, and I knew if I could get you to the gym, I could call him to discuss his return."

"Oh," Paul lightened, "I'm sorry, I'm so stupid, I thought it was something more than that."

"No, it's not," she assured him, breathing a little easier that he'd bought it. She hoped her other self hadn't yelled out Paul's name when she was with Chris. It wouldn't suit her if both of her got into trouble with her husbands. "It was just the last thought in my mind, and I didn't even know I was saying it."

"I'm sorry, I've been irrationally mad when you've been lying here, hurting, I'm sorry," he kissed her forehead. "I love you."

"I love you too," she puckered her lips for a real kiss and he deigned her with one.

"Don't scare me like this again, okay, you hear me?" he told her, his eyes fraught with worry.

"I won't, I promise," she told him.

And if she could help it, she wouldn't scare herself like this again either.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Thank you for the reviews and everything, this story is crazy, I think, but thanks for reading anyways, enjoy, leave a review! :)

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><p>She still felt bad for her slip up.<p>

It wasn't fair to Paul to think about Chris while she was here although that never stopped her. But to say his name, to call for him when she was dizzy and fainting, that was something _she_ couldn't forget even if Paul did. And he believed her, full stop, because he trusted her and loved her. She could tell neither man the truth, so they sat there, both of them, blindly in love with her while she essentially lied to the both of them.

Sometimes she was consumed with the urge to make a choice. It crept up on her every now and then, very much like a monster, climbing out from the deep recesses of her mind and asking her who she thought she was to get two lives like this. She would bat at the monster, shield herself, and try to keep it at bay, but it would force its way through her defenses, and demand an answer. It would force her to look closely at both lives, look at them, and face them head on.

She sometimes thought that maybe if she made a choice, voiced that choice into the universe that she'd wake up in the same place every single day for the rest of her existence. But whenever she thought she could choose one life, she would think about her other life, and the choice was impossible. How could she make four people just vanish from her life? How could she possibly choose to snuff out anyone's entire life? She couldn't choose.

And so the monster would crawl back into the dark.

So she continued to lie to them, and sometimes she slipped up, and she would cover her biggest lie with a simple lie. That's why she was sitting here, in her hospital bed, as her husband, _one_ of her husbands, conducted her business beside her. Because she'd fainted, she had to stay the night. With a concussion that went undetected, they wanted to monitor her although her CT scan came back normal.

As she lay in the tube, she wasn't scared. No, she just continued to think, and at some point, she almost wished she could live in the enclosed space, hoping that she could insulate herself. She was thinking too destructively, and she tried to push the thoughts away, but when you had to stay still for 45 minutes, your mind wandered, and with her mind, there was a lot of space to cover.

"No, she's not coming in for the rest of the week, I told you," Paul's gruff voice pierced through the haze of her thoughts and she turned her head slightly to look at him. He looked at her apologetically, reaching out to grab her hand, and she gave him a faint smile. "No, she has a concussion, do you really want her doing work while her head is fuzzy?"

Her head was constantly fuzzy, sorting through the different memories, the different timelines, the different everything that varied from world to world. "It's okay," Stephanie whispered to him, "don't be mad."

Paul sometimes needed to be calmed. Both her husbands were hotheads, but usually under different circumstances. "Just get on without her for a few days," Paul barked into the fun, making Stephanie wince for the person on the other end. Paul could be mean sometimes, or at least, he could _sound_ mean, but his intentions were not meant to be so. He just had a high intimidation factor.

"Paul, give me the phone," Stephanie held out her hand.

"I've got it covered, Steph," he told her, but she continued to hold out the phone, leveling him with her gaze. He sighed and relented, handing the phone over, and she smiled in earnest at him. He gave her a half-smile back, knowing he could never stay mad at her for very long.

"Hello," Stephanie said into the phone, "oh, hey, Nady."

"Hey, Steph, I was just talking to your husband, and he said—"

"I know what he said, believe me," Stephanie laughed into the phone, "and yes, I will have to take the rest of the week off, but don't worry, just forward all my stuff to me, and when I feel better probably tomorrow, I can get some work done."

"Okay, Steph, feel better!"

"I will, thanks, Nady," Stephanie said, saying her goodbyes and ending the call. She turned to her husband, "Paul, you don't have to yell at the employees, okay? She wasn't doing anything wrong."

"I know, but…I just feel responsible for you being here," Paul chastised himself and she could tell that he was torn up for what he'd done. Stephanie scoot over in the bed then patted the empty space she'd just vacated. "What are you doing?"

"Come on, they just checked my vitals, so that means nobody is going to come in here for a while, get your cute butt up here," she patted the bed enticingly, or as enticingly as a person in a hospital gown could be. "Look, it's not even on the side that my IV is on…"

Paul looked skeptical for a second, his brow furrowed in what she could only guess was worry before he chuckled quietly to himself and stood up. He somehow managed to get his body on the bed, trying not to squish his wife in the process. He managed to settled into the bed after pushing down the guardrail so he could get some room. He rested his cheek against her head as she settled in against him.

"Don't worry me like that again, please," Paul told her, his voice quiet. She hardly got to see him like this, sensitive, vulnerable, and when she did, she liked it. Paul had a tendency to be aloof at times, so when he completely let his guard down, she relished in it. "You have no idea what it was like…"

"I don't? You mean not like that time where you tore your quad?" Stephanie said to him and she could almost hear him rolling his eyes. She knew him, knew what his next words would be, so she cut him off at the pass. "And no, they weren't the same situation, but it was worrisome nonetheless."

"I don't care, don't do it to me again," and there was her husband, the one she loved and laughed with. She grabbed his strong hand and cradled it against her chest. "I'm a big guy, and I was reduced to a baby or something."

"You didn't handle the situation well?" she asked him.

"Well? Nancy called 911 while I freaked out," Paul explained to her. "I was useless."

"You're not useless," she kissed his knuckles. "It's a fluke thing. What happened was just an accident, there is no blame to give out. Are the girls alright?"

"Yeah, your brother has them," he explained. "He'll have them for tonight while I stay here."

"You don't need—"

"I want to."

"Paul?" she said, staring out the window though there was nothing to see except the sky. She wondered if she was actually looking at some distant galaxy where there existed another life, where her other husband was currently lying in a hospital bed, cracking stupid jokes, and pretending like his ass was hanging off the bed while threatening to use a bedpan as a percussion instrument.

"Hmm?" he asked, the weariness of the day wearing down on him now.

"What if I told you I went somewhere while I was out cold?" she asked him. She hadn't. She couldn't remember anything except the world turning pear-shaped and shaded around the edges and then waking up in the hospital. She'd never blacked out before, but it was like there was a chunk of her life missing that she couldn't get back.

She thought this might be a way of bringing up everything, testing the waters so to speak. She never would believe that she could tell the entire truth. If she told her husband she was married to Chris Irvine in another life, he would think she was in love with him in this world, and she simply wasn't. Oh, she liked the Chris here well enough, and of course they shared traits, but this Chris Irvine didn't share her memories, and therein lay the difference. This was not her Chris, just as her Paul did not exist in the other world. Neither of them would understand. But maybe, she could gauge it, just a little bit, just to see.

"Went somewhere? What do you mean, you didn't go anywhere?" Of course Paul would think literally. He was a person who really saw things in black and white. It served him well in business, it made him a good businessman, but in terms of things like this, the gray areas eluded him.

"No, I mean, I think I went somewhere in my head, like, what if there was a scenario in my head?"

"Well, that's weird, do you think we should tell that to the doctor? Maybe that's some weird concussion side effect that could require surgery or something."

"No, no, no, it's nothing, I think it was just a very vivid dream while I was out," she quelled his suspicions. She didn't need brain surgery. She wasn't crazy. She was not crazy. So she hoped, but here she was, living with Paul while her brain knew she was also married to Chris.

"Of what?"

"Of another life," she said vaguely. Now would not be the time to bring up Chris, not after her slip up. He would believe her to be having an affair. "Murphy and Vaughn were boys, can you believe that?"

Hunter laughed, "I think I would find it easier if they were. I wouldn't have to be _that_ dad when they're older."

She laughed, "Yes, you will have your hands full."

"Because they all look like you, thank God."

"You're not half-bad, Mr. Levesque," she told him. "They were cute boys though, extremely cute."

Her heart ached in remembrance of her sons. Why had she brought this up? Why did she bring them up when she couldn't go home and hold them? "Paul? Can you bring the girls to me? I really want to see the girls." They wouldn't be exactly the same, but if she couldn't hold her sons, holding her daughters would be the next best thing, and she remembered that she hadn't even seen her daughters yet because she'd fainted before she'd gotten to them.

"I don't know, Steph…"

"Please, Paul, I haven't seen them…today, I haven't seen them today," she corrected herself. "I'm okay, I've only got the IV, they can't see the stitches, please, I just want them."

"Okay, don't get worked up," he said, scooting out from underneath her and finding himself back on solid ground. "I'll go get them, and they can visit…_for a while_, and only for a while. They really shouldn't even be here."

"But you'll bring them to me anyways," she knew he would because he loved her. He sighed and gave her a look. She grabbed his hand and pulled him towards her. When he was close enough, she grabbed him by the back of the neck and kissed him. He was surprised at first, but responded in kind. She pulled away and smiled at him. "Thank you."

"Like I wouldn't have given in," he said, his voice rough, but emotional at the same time. "I'll be back soon, no fainting spells or anything, got it?"

"Of course," she nodded as he walked out of the room backwards, like if he turned his back for a second she would get hurt again. She waved him out of the room, and once he was gone, she settled back against her pillows. She tried not to think of her kids in her other life, but it was inevitable they come to mind. She missed her kids when she was away from them, her kids here included, that was why she was so anxious to see them.

"Mommy!" Aurora shouted as she ran into the room.

"Rora," Paul told her, "no yelling in the hospital."

"Sorry, Daddy," Aurora lowered her voice appropriately as she bounded to Stephanie's bedside. Paul came over with Murphy, who was clinging to his jeans, and Vaughn, who was nestled in her daddy's arms. Stephanie reached out for Vaughn and Paul handed her over. Stephanie hugged her tightly as her husband lifted her other daughters onto the bed. They all came over, mindful of her, but she felt happy for the first time since waking up. They all cuddled up with her, chattering on about their day and how much they wanted to see her. She only wished she could have all six of her kids at once, but this was more than enough. She kissed each small head and closed her eyes.

The monster was kept at bay once again.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Thanks again for the reviews, reads, and everything for the story, much appreciated, hope you enjoy, and reviews are lovely. :)

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><p>Stephanie stretched her neck, hissing as her head moved the wrong way and the bump on her head was pressed against her pillow. She opened her eyes and was startled to find she wasn't in the hospital any longer. She was just in the hospital last night though, wasn't she? She blinked a couple times, trying to piece together the events in her brain, but she still felt a little foggy.<p>

"Hey, you're up."

She recognized that voice and she turned over, "Why aren't I in the hospital?"

"Hospital? Why would you be in the hospital?" Chris asked, putting down the tray in his hands on Stephanie's makeup table. He narrowed his eyes at her. "You were in the hospital the other day with your head, but why would you be in one now? Is it your head, do you need to go to the hospital?"

She heard the fear in his voice and she quickly sat up, waving her hands in front of her, "No, no, I'm okay, I was just thinking about when I needed to get my stitches out. I forgot when the appointment was."

"Not for another few days I think," he told her. "If you were in the hospital, I think I'd be a nervous wreck, clearly I don't do well when you're hurt."

She felt like he was talking about something she didn't remember. Usually she had some semblance of what happened, but she was drawing a blank, her mind still in her world with Paul and not here with Chris. The last thing she remembered was falling asleep with the girls cuddled around her, and now she was here. She watched as Chris went back over to her makeup table, taking up the tray again and bringing it over to her.

"I think you'd do fine."

"Yeah, do fine, when you were resting, I had to take care of three unruly children. Why do we have two sons? I think I would have done far better with three daughters," he joked. Stephanie blanched, thinking about her little girls in the world she left behind. "Baby, you okay, you're looking a little pale, you better eat something."

"Yeah, thank you," she told him, looking down at the tray. "You cooked for me."

"Yes, this is not an unusual occurrence though, I cook for you a lot," he laughed, sitting on the edge of the bed facing her. "I made all your favorites because you still need to be resting, and yesterday, you deliberately did some work even though you shouldn't stress yourself out."

"It's just stitches," she said, figuring that for some reason, she didn't have a concussion here. Maybe she just got dizzy from being in a different world or something, and maybe she hit her head. She was too tired and disoriented to think about it now. "I'll be fine. I think I can do some work."

"I just would rather you take it easy, but I know I can't control you," he said, grabbing a blueberry from her plate. She opened her mouth and he teasingly threw it at her mouth, making it in. He held his arms up in victory as she chewed on her blueberry. Chris was a very self-sufficient, and when she once suggested hiring a cook, he laughed in her face. They both had hands and enough cooking experience to make their own meals.

"Thank you for at least acknowledging that I can get _some_ work done. I'll compromise by not going into the office," she told him, "I guess it's a good thing my dad hasn't let me take over, huh?"

"Probably good right now," he told her as she grabbed her cup of coffee and took a long sip. "Just the way you like it?"

"We've been together years, if you can't make me my coffee the right way by now, there's no reason for you to stick around," she told him. She turned serious and curious for a moment, "If I had to go to the hospital, say if I fainted or blacked out or something, how would you handle that?"

"Very poorly," he told her, "I mean, you saw me with the kids, well, at least with Rora. I freaked out when you went into labor. I think I broke our door down, remember, I nearly pulled it off the hinges because I was rushing around so much."

"Oh God, yeah," she giggled remembering it through hazy-colored glasses. "You somehow forgot how to turn a doorknob and you just kind of pushed the door open even though you hadn't turned the knob."

"I like to think I was better with the other two, it was just Rora that made me a nutcase, but she was my first."

Stephanie was with Paul during Murphy's birth, and she remembered how calm he'd been, and through transference, or shared memories, or whatever force powered her two lives, she knew he'd exuded the same calm demeanor with Aurora too. Paul was like that though, he was extremely cool in any circumstance that should arise. It was what made him a really great executive for the company. His ability to remain objective and without swaying emotion let him handle business and conduct himself professionally.

"You were slightly better with those two."

"If you went to the hospital though, if you blacked out, I would be a nervous wreck. We're talking threatening doctors, trying to pay off nurses to let me see you, demolishing walls to get to you, you know, the works."

"I appreciate that," she said, "where are the girls…I mean, Rora and the boys, girls, see, you have me thinking about what it would be like if we had three girls!" She took a deep breath and a long sip of her coffee to cover up that blunder.

"Your mother took them off my hands for the day, so that's a load off my mind. It's hard trying to keep track of the older two while trying to take care of that younger one, and it makes me wonder why we wanted three in the first place."

"So we've gone from having three kids to you wanting three girls to you wanting less than three, what's next, no kids at all?"

"It would make our sex life easier," he winked at her. "Can you even imagine three girls though, I'd be beating them off with sticks, maybe it's better we have only one girl because three girls, I'd need testosterone shots every week."

"Well, Rora and I are at a disadvantage since Vaughn was born, now it's three boys to two girls, maybe Rora and I will need estrogen shots, plus our little grump isn't very girly to begin with," Stephanie said.

"True, but neither are you," Chris rubbed her leg as Stephanie took a bite of the Belgian waffle on her plate. "I'm glad we have the lot we do. They're a good bunch, noisy, messy, dirty, but a good bunch of kids."

"Oh, good, I'm sure they like that they have your approval," she said, "three girls would have you wrapped around their little fingers."

The three girls she did have, in a world across the valley of her mind, had Paul completely enchanted. He might not be the most hands-on father, but when it came to love, there was no shortage of it. His face when the girls were tucked into bed with her, it was serene, like everything he needed was right there. It was the same kind of face Chris got when he was around their kids. Both men loved so much, though Paul didn't wear it on his sleeve as much as Chris did, but both of them had hearts made for loving others.

"You talk like you have experience."

"Oh, like I didn't have my father wrapped around my finger, and you would do anything for Rora in a heartbeat."

"Maybe," he said as she moved her head and winced as she twisted it the wrong way, "How is it you're injured, but you manage to make me forget it until you remind me that you actually are injured?"

"I'm a good actress," she said, which wasn't completely untrue. She acted like she didn't have another life. She acted like she didn't have another husband. She acted every day of her life because she lived on two stages, and she never knew when the curtain would close on one and draw up on another.

"I'm not sure whether I should be suspicious of that or not, does that mean you fake it with me?" he asked her and she blushed, "Oh God, so I'm not as good in bed as I think I am, well, this certainly is a blow to the old ego."

"No, no, don't worry, I'm very well-satisfied," she told him then was reminded that he wasn't the only man she slept with. But she pushed that out of her mind because she hated when her mind went _there_. She was sleeping on a regular basis with two men, and she didn't need to have that stuck in her brain all the time. She simply committed to one man when they were with her, and that was that.

"Good," Chris said, and was about to say something else when her cell phone rang. Chris rolled his eyes before speaking, "They can't even give you a morning before they need something."

"That's what happens when you help run a multi-million dollar company," Stephanie said, reaching for her phone. She looked at the display, "Oh, it's just Paul."

"He couldn't wait a few days to talk to you?"

"Chris, he probably is calling to see how I am."

"Yeah, and to see what you can do for him," he told her. He grabbed a strawberry off her plate, leaned over to kiss her softly before standing up and walking out of the room, seemingly to give her some privacy, which he usually did when she was trying to work. He glanced over his shoulder and winked at her before he was out of her sight.

She answered the call, "Paul, you couldn't wait two days?"

"Sorry, I know, first, I did want to see how you were, I'm still so sorry for all of that, you're okay though, right?"

"Yeah, just stitches, my husband is taking very good care of me though, even brought me breakfast in bed…which I'm eating…because it's breakfast time, Paul. You really couldn't wait to talk to me."

"No," he said slowly, "I'm just really anxious to get back. I need to be back in the ring, it's like calling me, you know what I mean. I can't stay away for so long."

Something he and her Paul had in common, "You know, sometimes the ring isn't calling you, but maybe there's another ring that is."

"Are you trying to give me relationship advice?" Paul asked as Chris walked back in the room. He mouthed that he was bored without her and climbed into bed next to her, leaning his head on her shoulder as she wrapped her free arm around him so he could snuggle closer to her.

"I'm trying to say I think Jamie deserves a ring on her finger. You two have been together a while, you obviously love each other, why not? You should be happy, you deserve to be happy," Stephanie told him, and he did. This Paul, if he was anything like her Paul would thrive in a family life. He was not meant to be a loner bachelor forever.

"Listen to her, she's persuasive, but she does it because she knows what she's talking about," Chris called out.

"Great, he's listening in?" Paul asked.

"He's my husband, no secrets."

"Not making a compelling argument for me getting married, Steph. Are you really just trying to find a way not to talk about me coming back? Because I can read the writing on the wall if that's the case."

"No, I just want you to be happy, Paul."

She just wanted this other version of her husband to be happy.


	10. Chapter 10

The moment Stephanie walked into the house, she knew that it was going to be messy. She could hear Chris and the kids somewhere in the house, and there was screaming, and laughing. She was tired from work today, but hearing her family having fun and being together always lifted her spirits. She put her bags down on the table near the front door, kicked off her shoes in the direction of their front den, and started looking for her family.

If she were in her other life, leaving her bags and kicking her shoes off letting them land wherever would have gotten her a look. Paul just liked things neater, and sometimes she just wasn't all that neat, so it was nice to put stuff down, and not have anyone comment on it. She went into the living room, but there was nobody in there. The television was on however, and the remnants of people being in there were all over the place. She grabbed the remote and turned off the television before grabbing a couple boxes of crackers lying haphazardly on the floor and putting them on the coffee table for now.

She wandered down the hallway towards the playroom, and she could hear the laughing getting louder. She got to the playroom, standing in the doorway to survey the scene. Chris was lying on the ground as Aurora and Murphy tried to tackle him and tickle him. He kept rolling this way and that, just getting out of their reach. Vaughn was sucking on a pacifier near Chris's head, playing with a couple of blocks, banging them together and laughing around the pacifier.

"So this is what you do when I'm not here?" Stephanie asked as four sets of eyes turned towards her.

"Mommy!" Murphy said, running over and jumping up with his arms outstretched. She lifted him easily and he gave her a kiss right on the lips.

"I can tell someone had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich today with strawberry jelly," Stephanie laughed.

"How did you know? Mommy, are you magic?" Murphy asked, his eyes wide at the thought that his mother could be magical.

"No, you've still got jelly on your lips, silly," she told him, hugging him to her and relishing in holding him.

"Mommy, Daddy said that you're gonna get your stitches out, can I see them do it?"

"Why do you want to see that?" she asked.

"Because it'll be gross, and that's cool," he answered and she laughed and blew a raspberry against his cheek.

"So you think me getting hurt is cool, huh?" she asked, pulling away to give him a stern look. On other people, it might be scary, but for her kids, it was always a silly face. Murphy laughed and buried his face against Stephanie's neck in a hug. She brought him over to the couch and sat down, letting herself relax after a long day. Many days she and the rest of her family found themselves in this room more than any other. It was cluttered, toys everywhere, and she always felt sorry for their housekeeper who came in because she probably walked into this room and wanted to kill them for letting it get so messy.

The thing was, though, they were children, and they were going to get things messy. It was unrealistic to expect them to be neat and clean all the time. It took a long time for Paul to understand that. He was better now, but when the girls were younger, he tried to pick up after them every day, even after their maid cleaned. It got to the point where he was going to bed later than she was because he was trying to clean. She had to tell him it was okay for kids to be messy.

"_Paul, what are you doing up still?" Stephanie trudged into the room._

"_Just cleaning up, it's a mess in here."_

_Stephanie looked around and didn't see much of a mess. She walked up to him, and wrapped her arms around his left bicep, leaning her head against it. She'd been in bed, turning over to rest her arm on Paul, but the bed was empty, and it didn't seem like he'd even been to bed. It wasn't that late, but with two kids who constantly needed you, and with her pregnant with their third, it made her tire easily, and she tired to be in bed by 11:30 when possible._

"_Honey, I don't see any kind of mess," Stephanie told him, glancing at the toys in his hand. "You need to put those down and come to bed. The girls will wake up early tomorrow, and you have to pack still for your flight."_

"_I know, but I just knew everything in here was a mess—"_

"_Paul, look at me," Stephanie said, and when he didn't turn, she repeated herself, "Paul, please, look at me."_

"_What?" he asked, turning his head to look at her. _

"_Their little kids," she told him slowly, "and I know this is your first time with little kids because you weren't really there to see your niece and nephew grow up because you were traveling, but kids are like this, they're always going to mess things up. The days of a neat house are long gone. I love that you want things clean, but it isn't realistic anymore."_

"_It just bugs me."_

"_I know, but you get used to it, so will you please put the dolls down and come to bed."_

"_Remember my old house, how it was spotless?"_

"_And everything was white and made of glass. You were living in a fool's paradise," she joked. "You were never going to be able to keep that up and be a married man. So lighten up, the kids are going to be dirty and messy, and someday, they're going to track mud into the house or they're going to throw their clothes on the floor, and you will just have to grin and bear it because they're kids, and that's going to happen."_

"_Can we make them live in a bubble or something?"_

"_I'm afraid that kind of technology doesn't exist yet. Come on, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. The second step to recovery is coming to bed with your wife. The third step to recovery is sex with said wife."_

"_Okay, I think I may be getting better as we speak."_

She shook her head free of the memory. The last thing she needed to think about while with one husband was sex with other husband. She owed it to Chris to be in this world when she was here because she knew how much she missed it when she was with Paul. When she was in one world, she tried to commit to it as much as possible because she could wake up tomorrow and be universes away from it.

"No, Mommy, I want you to be okay," Murphy mumbled into her shirt.

"Thank you, I want you to always be okay too," she kissed the top of her head and watched as Chris turned on his stomach to play with Vaughn, who handed him one of the blocks he was holding. Aurora climbed on Chris's back and laid on top of it, curling up into a little ball and holding the doll in her arms like she was about to go to sleep. "Rora, are you using Daddy for a bed?"

"Yup, Daddy's my new bed now," Aurora said.

"What? When did this happen? Do I get any say?"

"Nope," Aurora said, snuggling even further into Chris's back. He just laughed and continued playing around with Vaughn, smashing blocks with him. Stephanie laid her head against her little mama's boy, Murphy, who was content to be around her.

Chris turned his head towards Stephanie when Vaughn decided that he was going to crawl over to one of his ring toys and play with that, "So how was your day?"

"Hectic, wall-to-wall meetings, I barely had time to eat before the next meeting so I'm starving, please tell me that you've already started dinner and that we can eat soon or I may resort to eating my own young like some kind of animal."

"The pork chops are already in the oven, everything else is ready, it should be ready in about 20, can you hold off that long or do I have to bring the children elsewhere?" 

"I think I should be good, thank you for making dinner." While the other world was different with their chef always making their meals, it was really nice to have home-cooked meals too. In one world she could feel pampered, and in the other, she could just be a regular person.

"I'm your husband, like I'd let you starve," Chris scoffed. "So, was one of those meetings with the man who had decided he's going to stalk you? If I weren't totally secure in our relationship, I would start to think he has designs on you."

She laughed, and it was a rich one. She knew what Paul was like when he was attracted to someone, she knew what he was like when he was in love with someone, and the Paul in this world couldn't care less about her. Sure, they were friends, but anything romantic was not in their stratosphere. He didn't look at her anything like her Paul did. Her Paul looked at her with a reverence and love this Paul didn't, and she knew that they were two distinct people though they looked like copies of one another. One of them loved her, the other did not. It was the same thing with her Chris and the other Chris.

"I think that's the last thing on his mind, unless I'm suddenly gold and able to be worn around someone's waist."

"You never know, I'll start giving him the stink-eye whenever I see him."

When this life first started, when she first woke up in one world then the other, beyond the fear, past that, she worried that somehow, both men would love her in both worlds, that she would have to keep making the same decisions over and over again. She remembered that one night, the one that changed everything, how one decision seemed to split her life in two, and it all came down to that choice. When she figured out what was going on, she worried that her life would always come down to that one choice.

In a way it did, that one choice broke her world into two, giving her both options, and she felt like maybe it was meant to fracture even further. Sometimes she thought about what would be different if she tried to love one man in both worlds, but it just didn't feel right. The Chris in her other world was happily married with three other children of his own, and the Paul of this world had a girlfriend he adored. It felt wrong to even want to love one man in both worlds because there were differences, glaring ones, ones she couldn't overcome and say, "I want to love this one man."

She feared sometimes it would come to that. That the only way to make one life was to erase another one. "Steph?"

"Hmm?" Stephanie looked over at her husband.

"You were starting to doze there for a second," he told her with a soft smile. "Let's make it an early night tonight?"

"Yeah, that sounds nice," she told him, smiling lazily. The couch in the playroom was an old one Chris brought from Florida when he moved in with her, and so it was old and lumpy, and so comfortable sometimes that she fell asleep here even when she didn't want to.

"How's your head? Is it okay? You weren't overly tired today, right?"

The other Chris never showed her affection like this. He loved someone else, there was no way he could ever be hers. She nodded, "Yeah, barely even bothered me except for the itching, but that's normal, they said. I can't wait to get the stitches out."

Vaughn went back over to Chris and offered him a plastic ring. Chris took it and pretended like it was the best gift in the world. "I'm sure, they're no fun. Is Rora actually asleep on me?"

"No, she's just lying there."

"Rora, get off now, it's time for dinner," Chris shook a little, causing Aurora to fall off his back. She giggled and crawled to him and kissed him. "You're too big for crawling, you weirdo."

"Daddy, I'm not a weirdo, you are."

"We're all weirdos," he told her, giving her an Eskimo kiss. "Okay, I think dinner should be ready, and we're going to eat, bathe, watch a little TV then bed, for all of us."

"Even Mommy?" Murphy asked.

"Especially Mommy," Chris gave Stephanie a stern look. "Got that, Mommy?"

"Got it."

There was no way she could ever just choose one.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Thanks for the reviews and all the feedback, everyone, really appreciate it, I know that a lot of you are wanting her to just choose Chris already, but I really am trying to balance it, and I do hope you enjoy the chapter. :)

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><p>"Hey, you okay?"<p>

Stephanie looked up at him, yawning a little bit as she tore her eyes away from the papers in front of her. The words had been swimming on the page for about a half hour now, but she couldn't sleep. She'd tried, climbing into bed, settling in, finding that sweet spot on the pillow, but when she closed her eyes, the sleep wouldn't come. After an hour of just lying there, she decided to simply get up and do some work. Maybe that would put her to sleep.

"Yeah, I'm good."

"It's just that it's 2 in the morning, and you're sitting here doing work," Chris said, walking over and sitting next to her, "what's up?"

"Insomnia," Stephanie told him, and it was, partly. Ever since her life splintered in two, insomnia had been something she had on occasion. It usually occurred at times like this, times when she spent a lot of time in one world. It was like her brain was willing her to get to the other one, but something was resisting. She'd been with Chris for almost two weeks now, and she missed her other world, she missed her other family.

It wasn't that she didn't love Chris or love her family here, but her heart ached for the other half. She had created so delicate a balance between the two worlds that when the scales started to tip in one direction, it made her entire self feel off-kilter. That's how she felt right now, she was just off, and it was affecting her sleep.

"Poor baby," Chris teased good-naturedly, reaching over and rubbing her lower back. "Did you want some warm milk?"

"I'm not five," she told him, but she threw him a smile to let him know she was just joking with him. He knew without her telling him though, and he leaned forward so he could rest his chin on her shoulder. She reached up with her right arm and ruffled his sleep-flattened hair. His breath on her neck tethered her to this world. "I don't think warm milk is going to help."

"Um, do you want me to read you something boring, um, I think we have Paul's book somewhere around here or maybe War and Peace."

"Lay off Paul," she told him, turning slightly to her left to kiss his forehead. Although Paul might not be hers in this world, she didn't think it necessary to rag on him _all_ the time. There were going to be times where she let it pass, the same went for Paul when she was with him. She knew the two of them, while not the bitter enemies that everyone claimed them to be, had no love lost for one another, and that was fine, but sometimes she just didn't want to hear it, especially since she hadn't seen her Paul for almost two weeks.

"Sorry, sorry, it was just too easy," Chris kissed her shoulder in hopes that she would see that he meant his words. "He's just such an easy target, I mean—"

"With the nose," she finished for him, "talk about going after the low-hanging—"

"Brow ridge, I know," Chris cut her off this time, and she couldn't help but laugh because that was a good one, and she had to acknowledge that it was. "So what exactly are you working on?"

"Nothing of real consequence," she told him, "future plans, storylines, short-term, long-term, every term. I was about to start gathering numbers for attendance for the quarterly report, and I think my dad wanted me to sign off on the expense reports this month."

"Okay, that sounds like a lot of consequence," he told her, "way too much consequence for two in the morning. You're going to be part of the walking dead in the morning if you don't try and get some sleep now. I can take care of the kiddos tomorrow morning, get the big one off to school, and you can just sleep in."

"You don't have to do that," she told him. Now she felt bad for wanting to be in the other world because Chris was being so sweet to her, and she felt guilty for wanting to leave him, but wasn't it for a good cause? She missed her girls in the other world, and she worried for them. She knew that other Stephanie took good care of them, but she wanted to be there to take care of them, to know they were okay.

"It's not a matter of having to do anything, it's a matter of wanting to do it for you because I love you," he told her simply and plainly, and God, now the guilt was coming at her full force. She almost wanted to tell him to stop being so sweet to her because it was making it harder for her to want her other life.

"I love you," she turned to rest her forehead against his. "When I'm with you, I just…I'm happy."

"Thanks," he told her, and she gasped because he didn't say he loved her back, and he laughed and kissed her cheek. "I love you back too, and I'm happy with you too. I don't think I could be this happy with anyone else."

That made her wonder about the other Chris. Was he happy with Jessica? He seemed to be, she'd heard they separated for a while, but then they worked through whatever problems they were going through, and the last time she'd seen them together, they seemed happy. But she and Chris never went through any separation, so did that mean he was happier with her? She didn't think she was supposed to be with Chris in the other world, but it just made her curious. Was there just one person you were happiest with, no matter where you were?

"Do you ever feel guilty for that?" she asked out of nowhere, and she wasn't even sure where she was going with this, but it was making her think.

"Guilty for what? For being happy?" he asked. She nodded, and he pulled away, looking at her, studying her, and she wondered if he was suspicious of something, maybe he'd misinterpreted her.

"I just, like, you know, I'm not fully awake so I'm not articulate or anything right now, but just…do you ever see people getting divorced or people who should be together and aren't, and you just kind of feel really lucky you have happiness, but kind of guilty because it's not what everyone has?"

She was really thinking about how guilty she felt feeling so happy when she should feel bad for having two lives. Shouldn't she hate herself for stringing two guys along, having them both unaware of the other? She should probably choose, but if she chose, would it even make a difference? She couldn't will her way into her other life, so it was completely out of control.

"You just have to hope that everyone finds it, I think."

"Do you think there are parallel universes?"

"Yeah, probably, why? Can you imagine me in a parallel universe, I might be some huge dork who likes classical music. I would be an accountant or something, or even a journalist like I studied. I would have the perfect Stepford wife and Wally and the Beav for children."

"I don't think that could ever be you," she told him. "Do you think you'd be married to me or no?"

"I think that in any universe I would find you," Chris told her, "I think that I would always be drawn to you no matter what the circumstances. You could be homeless on the street, and I would probably still find you the most beautiful woman in the entire world."

"Don't say things like that," she blushed.

"It's true though. I don't know, I'm not necessarily sure there's that whole one person for everyone thing because, well, sometimes people are widowed and they find love, and it's like, oh, was that other person not their person, but I'm about as sure about you as they come. I just don't forsee myself with anyone ever."

Stephanie gulped a little because she couldn't say the same. It wasn't the same, and why did she bring this up? Now she felt even worse. "Can you hug me right now?"

"Yeah, come on, I'll hug you in bed, but not the dirty kind of hugging," he told her. He stood up and grabbed her hand, helping her stand up. Once she was standing up, he lifted her off her feet, carrying her in his arms.

"What are you doing!" she exclaimed, wrapping her arms around his neck for leverage.

"You work too hard," he told her, carrying her upstairs and throwing her on the bed. She crawled under the covers, getting settled as Chris climbed in next to her. He got settled too, pulling her into his arms, and she rested her head in the crook of his neck, watching as he reached out to turn off the light. "Hey, you didn't answer the question, do you think that I would be your one and only in all the universes?"

Stephanie's mind flashed to her other family, her other life, and to the other Chris. No, she didn't think it, but what could she say? Tell him no, she didn't believe in that, because she had another life and another husband? She didn't think that would work. So lie, deny, make it seem like everything is alright. "Yes. Yes, I think that, I think we're it for each other."

"Aww, I hope parallel us are happy," he mused. "Man, if I didn't like metal music though, that would be so strange."

She yawned, "Yeah, it would be."

"Get some rest," he told her, "remember, you get to sleep in tomorrow, take advantage of your really hot, really considerate husband who is willing to take on three kids by himself just so you can get an extra hour or two of sleep. You know, you shouldn't even go into the office tomorrow. You have like 17 years of vacation piled up, you can take one day off."

"Not as the boss, I can't. You worry about me too much."

"I worry because you are the most important thing to me, you and the kids, that's my job. I hope it's other parallel Chris's job too, I'd hate to think other me is a jerk."

"I'm sure he's not a jerk," she said, knowing he wasn't, but that he wasn't hers either. Here Chris was, believing, thinking, practically knowing that he belonged with Stephanie, and she knew it wasn't the case. He loved her so completely and she couldn't even give him that. She couldn't give her complete self because she was split in half, two lives, two different Stephanies.

"You sure?"

"I'm pretty positive."

"Okay, well, I guess I can live with that," he yawned this time. "I'm going to sleep now. I'll see you in the morning. I'll bring home coffee and donuts after I drop Rora off."

She was going to answer him, but just left the quiet of the room intact. She listened for his breathing, which evened out soon enough. When she knew he was asleep, she wrapped herself around him tighter, as if using him as a life preserver. She just wanted to hold him. She might not be able to give him her whole heart, but here, now, she could give him every part she did have. It would have to do.

"Chris," she whispered, but he didn't answer, and she knew he was definitely asleep. She took a deep breath and didn't speak for a few moments because the words out of her mouth were going to be difficult, but she needed to say them. She needed to see. "I choose Chris. I choose this life. I want him, in this universe and all universes, I want Chris."

She breathed out, like saying it would instantly change everything, but it didn't. Nothing changed, and she closed her eyes, letting sleep drift over her. She wondered if things would be different when she woke up. If she chose, was this it? And if this was it, did that mean she would forget everything else? Only time would tell.

She opened her eyes, blinking a few times, wondering if everything changed. She turned over, and she looked around. "Morning, Steph, breakfast is downstairs, you slept in late." She looked towards the door.

"Paul…"


	12. Chapter 12

She'd made a choice.

She'd actually gone ahead and made a choice and it was all for nothing. Maybe it was because she didn't really mean it. She'd just said it to test it out, and it didn't work. Maybe she needed to mean it, but she didn't think she could ever truly _mean_ it. She loved both men, and she loved both her families so she wasn't sure she could ever mean it.

"Hey, you okay, you're not eating," Stephanie looked down at her plate, and it was true, she hadn't been eating, she'd just been pushing her eggs around her plate. "Not good? Or just not hungry?"

"Just not hungry, there's never anything that Emily makes that isn't good," Stephanie said, speaking of their personal chef. She just didn't have the appetite this morning, and she figured it was because she was thinking about what she'd done last night, and the potential ramifications it might have had.

What if she had stayed with Chris, what if she'd wished away the other world, her other life? She might not be with Paul right now, she might not have gotten to kiss her kids this morning. What was she thinking? She would have been going through the same conundrum if it was Paul's world she lived in and wished Chris away. She closed her eyes and tried to picture one life.

"Stephanie, where are you?"

Her eyes snapped open, and for a brief moment, she wondered if somehow Paul knew that she lived a double life. But no, he was just looking at her with concern, not with accusation. She sighed, "I'm sorry, not much sleep last night coupled with the stress of work. I know my father decided to stick around, but still, we have a lot to do and everything."

"Yeah, I get it," he sat next to her, kissing her temple. She smiled a little bit before taking a bite of her food, more to just prove that she was eating rather than anything else. She drifted off again, thinking about what Chris was doing right now, and she hated herself for that.

She was here, with Paul, and she should be thinking about Paul, not about Chris. Still, what if she banished herself to this world by choosing Chris? Now there was a line of thinking she hadn't thought about. What if this was because she chose Chris, and now this world was it for her. She panicked, but realized how silly that sounded (as silly as living two different lives was of course).

"Stephanie, seriously, are you okay? Do you need something to drink?" Paul was asking her again, and she must have paled.

"No, sorry, I'm really okay, just lacking sleep."

"Why don't you go back up and lie down, take the day off in fact. I can cover for both of us," he told her. "You should get some rest anyways. You have a baby, and that takes all your energy."

"Thanks, I think I will," she told him, knowing that she would get nothing done today anyways. She could just put it down as a loss. She was always working so taking time off wasn't going to make or break her. She trudged back upstairs and climbed into bed. She hadn't changed out of her pajamas, so she didn't need to do anything, just pull the covers over her and close her eyes.

_"You chose _me_."_

_"I know," Stephanie climbed into Chris's lap. "I know I chose you, but I didn't mean it. I mean, I meant it, but…there are others…"_

_"The other kids, right?"_

_"Yeah, and Paul, there's Paul, and I know you don't want to hear it, but I love him, and…do you understand?" she pleaded with him to understand even when she didn't understand herself. He nuzzled his nose against her cheek, but he didn't say anything. "Chris, do you understand?"_

_"No, I don't understand, Steph, and I wish I could, but I can't say that I do," he told her, "I love you, and I want all of you, but I have to share, and it's hard on us too, you know, living with you, in this suspended space."_

_"Do you get another me?" she asked the question she needed to know. "Or is there just me?"_

_"It's hard on us," he completely ignored her question, "you love both of us, but we only love you, that's hard. It's hard to live in that type of world."_

_"Am I dead, Chris? Is this was death is? Is it living the could have beens and should haves."_

_"There was that one night, Stephanie, that one night, and you chose us both, you could have chosen one, and you chose us both."_

Stephanie startled herself awake, shaking after her dream. It wasn't even particularly scary or anything, but it just brought her back to that night. Why that night? Why had it been that night? She'd had men ask her out before in close proximity, but why was it Chris and Paul, why those two? What was the pull these two had on her? Was it just random or did it mean something? Her head hurt.

She picked up the phone and dialed her sister-in-law's number. She lived in New York now, but that wasn't too far a drive. She waited for Marissa to pick up. She needed her sister-in-law right now. Marissa could make her feel better, she always did. If she was going to tell anyone about her two lives, it would be Marissa. She didn't think Marissa would treat her like an outcast. That didn't mean she was going to, just that if she ever did, she would probably confide in her.

"Steph, what's up?"

"Hey, I took a day off," Stephanie said, "well, was forced to by Paul, and I was hoping you were free and could come down."

"Absolutely, I'm on my way."

"That quick?" Stephanie laughed.

"I have boys, only boys around here," Marissa said, "you better believe that I want to come over there. My mom has the youngest, so I can come over, is Vaughnie there? I need some girlyness in my life."

"I think Paul took her to work."

"Damn," Marissa said, "anyways, I'll be by in like an hour or so. See you then!"

"Yup."

Stephanie decided to explore the house to see if anyone was around. It was the nanny's day off, but Vaughn wasn't around, so she figured that Paul did bring her to work or else they had bigger problems on their hands. The house was empty except for her and it was a rare thing with all the help they had around here. She decided to get dressed and at least look a little presentable. She felt better after getting dressed up and actually combing her hair.

"I'm here!" Marissa said, using her key to get inside. "Oh man, quiet, that's a sound I rarely get to hear."

"Come here," Stephanie said, hugging Marissa tightly, "I've missed you."

"You see me all the time and still, the girl can't get enough of me," Marissa told her. "So come on, let's get lunch, manicures, our hair done, the works, actually, I don't even know what you want to do, but you aren't looking good, you okay?"

"Tired."

"Babies, man, babies," Marissa said, not really knowing the truth. "You want to just hang out here for a little bit?"

"That sounds good," Stephanie said, sitting on the couch and waiting for Marissa to join her. "I've just been overworked lately, I guess, I feel like I'm living two different lives."

"Oh God, don't even say that because can you imagine having to live two lives, I think we barely have enough energy for one," Marissa said, rolling her eyes heavenward at the thought of that. Stephanie winced when she wasn't looking. It was tough, and maybe that's what it boiled down to, she was running out of energy to keep up with both worlds.

_"What if I get tired?"_

_"You get tired," Chris shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you, Steph."_

_"Tell me that there's an easy out for all this, tell me that I can choose someday, maybe not today or soon, but that I will be able to, I don't know, just reassure me that I'm not completely fucking everything up."_

_"You never mess anything up," he wrapped his arms around her from behind and held her close. "You miss me when I'm not with you?" he was asking rather than telling her, and she nodded her head. "Do you really?"_

_"Yes, I do, but then, I miss Paul when I'm not with him."_

_"Then why do you keep dreaming of me?" he asked. "This is the second time, do you dream of Paul when you're with me?"_

_"I think of him, yes," Stephanie admitted because she couldn't honestly say that Paul was out of her mind when she was with Chris. Sometimes she wished that one world would blot out when she was in the other, just so she could focus instead of having her head in two places, thinking two different things, making different decision along the way. It was all so tiring._

_"But yet here I am, right in your subconscious, and it's because you chose me."_

_"I only did it because—"_

_Chris leaned his chin on her shoulder, his warmth radiating out of him, and she wondered how he could still be so warm in a dream. It was like he was really there, and she relished that feeling. She missed him. "You did it to test it out, we've been over that, but why me, why now, why did you do it if you knew that there was a chance that the other world would go bye bye?"_

_"I don't know, just to see," she floundered. "I don't really know, Chris, I just know that it didn't work, and now I'm being tortured by you, and I don't know what to do."_

_"I think you know what to do, I think you already kind of did it."_

_"It didn't work."_

_"Think about it."_

"Stephanie."

Stephanie opened her eyes and saw Marissa sitting there. "Oh um, did I fall asleep, I'm sorry. I guess I just must be more tired than I thought. Vaughn was pretty much up all night. She gets fussy sometimes."

"I went to the bathroom, and when I came back you were asleep," Marissa told her, but she was still looking at her, studying her, as if something were very, very wrong. Stephanie didn't know what was going on. "I mean, you must just be really tired to nod off like that, but um, yeah, you just must be really, really tired."

Something was off though. Something wasn't right. "What's the matter with you?"

"It's just…um…I don't know how to say this…" Marissa rubbed the back of her neck, and that was a sure sign that something was very, very wrong. Maybe this world wasn't even real anymore, maybe Marissa was going to tell her that this was it, she'd blink and it would all be gone. She looked around quickly, but nothing changed, no walls were melting and the sky wasn't turning green.

"Just say it."

"You were muttering something while you were asleep." Marissa sounded even more uncomfortable now, like she really didn't want to say whatever it was she was going to say, but Stephanie needed to know. She was still exhausted, and maybe the sleeping, this constant need for sleep was this world slipping away from her or maybe it was the other, and her brain turned to mush just trying to parse it out.

"What did I say?" Her heart was already sinking. Whatever this was, whatever Marissa was going to say, it wasn't going to be good so she braced herself for the worst. She took a deep, shuddering breath and stilled. Marissa bit her lip like she didn't want to talk just yet, but finally, she just let it out.

"Chris."


	13. Chapter 13

She froze, and if she wished hard enough, maybe she could be willed into her other life, and the other Stephanie (if she existed) would take over for her. That way she would get out of this awkward situation, and her sister-in-law wouldn't look at her so accusingly covered up by genuine concern. She gave a hard swallow and hoped Marissa didn't catch it, and that she thought it was just dry mouth after having fallen asleep with her mouth open (she hoped her mouth was open while she was sleeping).

"What?" she feigned ignorance.

"You were muttering the name Chris," Marissa told her again. She scooted a little bit closer to Stephanie. "Is there something you want to talk about, a reason why you're so…um, tired?"

"Marissa," she acted shocked, but yes, Chris was part of the reason why she was so tired, but it wasn't for the reason Marissa was thinking right now. She could see it in her eyes, she thought Stephanie was having an affair, and it wasn't like that. It wasn't like that at all, but how do you tell someone there's this whole other life you're leading without looking crazy? There wasn't one so deflect and lie it was.

"Stephanie," she mimicked, "like, seriously, that was weird, is there something, I mean, Chris as in Chris like…Irvine?"

"There's nothing going on with me and Chris," she shook her head vehemently. "I swear, there's nothing going on with the two of us."

"If there was something you wanted to tell me, I wouldn't judge you," Marissa told her, "I promise that I wouldn't. I would help you if you needed it."

"Whatever you're thinking, Ris, it's not true," she tried to deflect again, and maybe if she changed the subject. "So, I haven't really—"

"Don't do that, Stephanie," Marissa was onto her. "Don't try to deflect, please. I know something's up, and I'm trying to be nice and be your friend, your _sister_," she was really trying to pull out the big guns. "You were saying Chris's name, over and over again, and that's…weird."

Stephanie didn't know what to say. She closed her eyes for a long moment, and she hoped that it would all be over when she opened her eyes, but when she did, Marissa was still looking at her. She couldn't tell. Marissa _said_ she was her friend and sister (still a dirty move if you asked Stephanie), but if she told her that she was living two different lives, Stephanie had a feeling her opinion would change on a dime.

"I'm really not having an affair with Chris," Stephanie just laid it out there, laid out what Marissa was surely thinking.

"Okay," Marissa said, and she had the decency to sound convinced. "So…you just have dreams about him then?"

She clearly wasn't going to let this go. Why couldn't she just let this go? Why couldn't she just transport to her other life, and just forget this ever happened? She could just go with Chris for a couple weeks, and this thing would blow over, and she and Marissa would have a good laugh. As if her life wasn't difficult enough, now she had Marissa thinking she was having an affair, and she had a feeling that no matter what she said, Marissa would continue to think along those lines.

"It was just a really weird dream, that was all," Stephanie frowned like she didn't want the dream, not that she did, but she did want that other life. "I don't know, it was like, I guess it was like I was living in this alternate life." She decided to try and test the waters and see what happened.

"Alternate life, oh, and were you with Chris?" Now Marissa was intrigued, and it took it past her being with Chris to just her imagining being with Chris. That was fine. Marissa didn't need to know that she knew every curve and line to Chris's body, knew what it felt like to have his weight pressed against her while she watched his blue eyes smolder with cool fire. Marissa could just think it was a woman simply indulging in a fantasy, and not part of her reality.

"Yeah, it was weird, I mean, you know, being with him, but it was like, we were married, and I was never with Paul, and we had the three kids, but only Aurora was a girl, Murphy and Vaughn were both boys," she laughed like it was hilarious, but she felt a twinge of aching when she thought about her little boys.

"Wow, that is crazy," Marissa laughed. "Could you imagine if we did have alternate lives? Like, how crazy would that be, but it would be cool too, you know, see how it is on the other side, and what if you like had them both, then you could compare, weird, right?"

"So weird," Stephanie echoed.

"In my alternate life, I'd probably marry Josh Wieners, can you imagine me as Marissa Wieners?" she giggled. "So tell me, was dream Chris really good in bed?" She asked it like it was almost scandalous, and Stephanie started to blush a little bit because she knew exactly how good Chris was in bed from many years experience. "Oh my God, look at you, you're blushing!"

"Rissa!" Stephanie said, giggling because she couldn't help it.

"Was it a sex dream, Stephanie McMahon-Levesque?" Marissa teased her, poking her in the shoulder.

"No, nothing like that, I'm just embarrassed that you would think—"

"Come on though, what woman hasn't fantasized about another man before?" Marissa asked. "I mean, we all do it. I used to have very explicit fantasies about Tom Cruise, you know, before the crazy."

"But you don't know Tom Cruise."

"Wait, does that mean…with Chris?" Marissa bit her lip and started to nod slowly. "Yeah, I can see why. I mean, let's both be honest, he's a very, very good-looking guy, and his personality only makes him that much more attractive."

Stephanie tamped down the weirdly jealous feelings she was getting. She shouldn't feel that way, but then Marissa was talking about one of her husbands, albeit in this world, he was married to Jessica, yes, he was _married_, and she needed to stop thinking about him like that while she was here. She needed to focus on Paul, he deserved that much. He deserved her undivided attention when she was with him.

"Yeah…"

"I mean, I don't know many women who, given the chance, wouldn't at least want to try, you know," she smirked. "I mean, I remember this one time, I don't even know why we were both out there, I think he was just getting there late, and I left something in the car, and it started to pour, it was just pouring and I didn't have a coat or anything, and he sees me, runs over, and he puts his jacket over the both of us so that we could get inside, and it's just, he's a good guy."

"Rissa, it sounds like you're trying to get us together," she joked to try and get away from the subject.

"No, no, no, I know you're happy with Paul, you guys are like the definition of perfect, but it's just fun to think about it every now and then. I mean, alternate lives."

There was just no escaping it, no matter how hard she tried, "What if you had to go back and forth between them, like, what if one moment you were in one world, and the other you were transported to this completely different world?"

Marissa seemed to think on it for a couple minutes before she brushed some of her hair out of her face and proceeded to speak, "I think it would be fun at first, sort of, to know you have these two worlds, and I think it would be easy sometimes to get away from situations you didn't like or whatever, but then, I think, I think I would get tired of it because well, it's like, why would you need two if you were happy with one?"

"Yeah," Stephanie said, "but what if you were happy in both?"

Marissa scrunched up her mouth to the side, "I think, ultimately, you would have to choose one, or at least measure out your happiness, if that makes any sense. If we were meant to be with two people, we would be, you know, so it's like, why the two if we're just supposed to have the one?"

What she said struck something in Stephanie. She'd been living these two lives for so many years and she'd muddled her way through it, but even though she'd assessed both of them, did she really? She'd just accepted it as it was and never thought to question it until recently, and that was a failure, but she'd not been trying hard enough, not really. She just needed resolve, she supposed.

"Yeah, but enough about that, today is my day to relax, and I want to do all those things you mentioned," Stephanie was done thinking about it for now. It was too much heaviness for one morning. "Let me get dressed, and we'll go."

"Awesome!" Marissa clapped her hands excitedly.

They ended up getting their hair done, manicures, pedicures, facials, the absolute works and when she got home to her three screaming girls and one semi-grumpy husband, she felt ten times better than she had that morning. She walked into the kitchen where her two oldest were doing some sort of art project, and Vaughn was in a bouncer on the counter. Paul was simultaneously trying to help the girls and get dinner ready for them. She walked up behind him and hugged him from behind.

"Oh my God, thank you so much for coming home!" he said.

She laughed, "Rough day?"

"You can say that again," he turned around and kissed her on the forehead. "Never let me let you take the day off when the nanny is off. How do people do this without help? How do they manage?"

"I think they do just fine," she told him, kissing his cheek. "Come on, let's get the girls some food."

"Mommy, come see!" Murphy yelled at her. Stephanie left Paul to finish the rest of the cooking as she sat down at the table. The girls were drawing with crayons, and making beautiful, yet slightly unrecognizable drawings. Her daughters made her happy, that happiness couldn't be measured, and the same with her other Aurora and her boys, but then her eyes passed over Paul, and she wondered if she really, truly had to come to grips that she might love one man more than the other. If she came to that conclusion, maybe that would end.

Maybe she'd been putting it off for a lifetime already. It might have been easy at first too, it might have been an easy choice to make if it were just the men in her life, but once the kids came, she loved them, and she must have put it out of mind, convincing herself that she was happy in both, that her happiness was equal in both when in actuality, it wasn't, and she was just trying to put a Band-Aid over it. She didn't want to figure it out because figuring it out would mean losing pieces of her heart, and maybe that's why she kept stalling, it was certainly why she was stalling now.

She was happy with Paul, she was happy with Chris, but was it the same kind of happiness with both? Who was the man who made her smile more, laugh more? Who was the one who knew her inside and out, who could read her mind without her even mentioning anything? Who was the one that when they touched her, her skin felt like it was on fire, and whose breath gave her more shivers when it hit her skin? Who was the man who truly _got_ her?

How could she decide?


End file.
